Women wash clothes in filthy water as dead chickens float nearby. Young boys fish for plastic bags and other recyclable waste to scrape together a few extra cents. An elderly woman calls out to rescuers for food and water.
A boat ride with emergency workers through a flooded street in the Indonesian capital on Tuesday exposed the hardships facing survivors in this battered city.
While some parts of the capital began drying out, storm waters were still several meters deep in low-lying areas along river banks where tens of thousands of the city's poorest live in cluttered alleys.
PHOTO: AFP
Hundreds of thousands slept at makeshift shelters where medical workers said diarrhea and skin diseases were widespread.
The death toll from the floods -- which at their peak forced some 340,000 people from their homes -- has risen to at least 50, the Health Ministry said yesterday. Most of the fatalities were due to drowning or electrocution.
Some residents of Bendungan Hilir district -- where the main market, hospital and most houses were inundated -- have moved to upper stories and were living on handouts of instant noodles and rice. The fear of looters was keeping many from leaving.
On Tuesday morning under gray skies, men fished in the debris-clogged water from rooftops and balconies, hoping to supplement their diet with fish. Others bathed their children or washed clothes in the dirty water.
The boat, rowed by Indonesian soldiers, made its way past floating furniture, people wading through chest-high waters with plastic water containers balanced on their head and children swimming as if they were in a public pool.
Indonesia's poor -- a majority in the country of 220 million people -- have borne the brunt of a recent string of natural disasters, including the 2004 Asian tsunami, which killed more than 160,000 people on Sumatra.
The flooding in recent days, the worst in the capital in recent memory, was no exception.
As many as 38,000 people in the southwestern district, which borders some of the city's wealthiest high-rise apartments and sleek skyscrapers, were crammed into unhygienic shelters, officials said.
"We are sharing two toilets between 1,000 people," said Nelly, whose family of nine awoke in the middle of the night last Thursday when the river just 100m away broke its banks.
The 25-year-old mother, who uses a single name, rushed outside as the water swept in.
"It came suddenly," she said, recalling her panic in the dark. "The water was up to my neck when I carried my daughter out above my head."
Her two-and-a-half year-old daughter has had diarrhea since the flood and they slept on the floor of a classroom with 30 others.
Nelly and her family were too poor to move to higher ground in the city, where floods are a common occurrence during the annual rainy season.
For Rina, a 27-year-old mother of two whose house was still inaccessible on Tuesday, next week offers challenges enough. The school where she has been staying was scheduled to reopen and she fears she will be kicked out.
"We just don't know where we will go," she said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese