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Indonesians face health risks after floods

Flood-affected residents struggle to reach relief goods distributed by volunteers in Jakarta yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

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.

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.
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