Heavy rains forced the closure of Jakarta’s international airport for almost five hours today and triggered flooding in the Indonesian capital that brought traffic to a standstill and disrupted power supplies.
Normal take-offs and landings, which had been prevented by poor visibility, resumed in the afternoon at Soekarno-Hatta airport, Muhammad Waspan, spokesman of PT Angkasa Pura II, which runs the airport, said by phone. Water levels rose as high as 40 centimeters (1.3 feet) on Jakarta’s main roads and as high as one meter in the outer skirts of the capital.
Monsoon rains cause flooding almost every year in Jakarta, a city of more than 8 million people, because the city’s only flood canal isn’t big enough to handle the runoff. More than 80 people were killed and thousands more left homeless from floods last February.
Indonesia’s Meteorology and Geophysics Agency expects more heavy downpours in the capital tomorrow. Their intensity may be less than today, when the equivalent of a month’s rain, or 300 millimeters, fell in Cengkareng, in west Jakarta near the airport, Achmad Zakir, head of meteorology information, said.
Floods forced President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to switch cars when traveling across Jakarta to the state palace in the center of the city, according to Metro TV.
Power Cuts Thousands of residents were left without electricity in the Greater Jakarta area, said Mulyo Adji, spokesman at PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara, the country’s state power company.
“It’s based on requests of people whose areas are inundated to prevent accidents,” Adji said.
Floods didn’t disrupt business activities at PT Astra Daihatsu Motor, which has a plant in north Jakarta, Sudirman M.R., vice president of Astra Daihatsu, said by phone. The plant produces vehicles with Toyota Motor Corp. and Daihatsu Motor Corp., including Avanza minivans.
PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia, the nation’s biggest phone company, will take contingency measures if the flooding worsens, company spokesman Eddy Kurnia said.
“So far, our services are unaffected,” he said. The flooding last February damaged the company’s equipment, disrupting services to at least 90,000 customers.
Astra Daihatsu had to shut its plant last year because of the high water.
Jakarta accounts for about 30 percent of Indonesia’s gross domestic product. The city said the flooding came earlier than expected and officials have prepared health posts to assist victims, city government spokesman Arie Budhiman said.
Most railways were also closed until water levels receded, Ahmad Sujadi, a spokesman at PT Kereta Api said. Several rail tracks were under as much as 1 meter of water, he said.
