Friday, March 27, 2009

Dam Bursts Near Jakarta, Killing at Least 58 People

March 27 (Bloomberg) -- A dam burst near Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, killing at least 58 people and leaving more than 100 missing as hundreds of houses were under as much as 2 meters (6.6 feet) of water, government officials said.
The death toll from the Gintung reservoir’s bursting dam is likely to rise, Andi Hanindito, director for emergency relief at the Social Ministry, said in Jakarta today. So far 173 people have been treated for injuries, Rustam Pakaya, head of the ministry’s crisis center, said in a text message.
The dam in the Tangerang district, west of the capital, broke at 5 a.m. local time after starting to crack about three hours earlier, said Chrisnanda, a spokesman for the Jakarta police. The search for victims is continuing and the water level has come down, said Chrisnanda, who, like many Indonesians, uses only one name.
More than 80 people were killed and thousands more left homeless during weeklong floods in Jakarta in 2007. Floods also prompted the closure of the city’s Soekarno-Hatta international airport in 2008. Monsoon rains cause flooding almost every year in Jakarta, a city of more than 8 million people where the only flood-control canal isn’t big enough to handle the runoff.
“The dam was no longer able to hold that amount of water and with heavy rainfall it burst within a short time,” Public Works Minister Djoko Kirmanto said. “We will improve the reservoirs, and these steps are not merely emergency measures.”

I have friends there.

I wish I knew how they are doing

3 comments:

diana said...

i heard about that. it's terrible when things like this happen. i really hope you hear about your friends, boneman ..
XO

boneman said...

Today after much tracking and math (one gal had made a comment at another friend's about an hour after that dam broke) there is but one missing person out there.
Well, from my handful of friends.
I hope he's OK.
I think he might be.

Middle Ditch said...

You would think that more is done to prevent such things happening. It makes awful reading. I hope your friends are okay

friendly wanderers

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