JAKARTA: Much of this capital city was under water Tuesday and the authorities warned of the spread of disease after torrential rains, overflowing rivers and clogged sewers brought widespread flooding over the weekend.
At least 29 people were reported to have died from drowning, electrocution or disease. An estimated 340,000 people were driven from their homes and hundreds of thousands remained without electricity or clean water in the worst flooding here in years. The skies cleared Monday but meteorologists said more rain was possible in the days ahead, along with renewed flooding if rivers again burst their banks.
In lower-lying parts of Jakarta that are populated mostly by the poor, water that had risen as high as four meters, or 12 feet, still engulfed entire houses. Officials estimated that from 40 to 70 percent of this city of 12 million people had been submerged. From the air, it appeared in places that red tile roofs were floating on the brown water.
Some people remained crowded into the upper floors of their homes without sanitation, utilities or telephone service. Some of them said they were remaining in their inundated houses to guard against looters. Others took shelter in schools and mosques where they slept crammed together, refugees in their own city. Five-star hotels were overbooked with well-to-do residents who had fled the flooding.
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http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/05/news/indo.php
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