VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

President Joko Widodo (Jokowi), while addressing a plenary cabinet session at the State Palace in Jakarta on Tuesday, asked his rank and file to anticipate natural disasters caused by extreme weather in the country.

“The anticipation of potential natural disasters due to extreme weather must also be calculated. Heat waves in Europe, flash floods in Pakistan, hurricanes in Florida, long droughts in Africa, in Kenya, I think all of that should be our evaluation material," he said, according to a video posted on the Presidential Secretariat's Youtube account and accessed from Jakarta on Wednesday.

Indonesia should be prepared to mitigate disasters caused by extreme weather, he stressed.

He said that he had directed the Minister of Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) to prepare pump points in anticipation of a dry heat wave.

"What I am afraid of is that we have had almost three years of wet season. Long wet season. What I fear is that there will also be a long dry season," he explained.

If water reservoirs are expanded and pumps in villages are prepared quickly, drought is expected to be anticipated.

“Once again, preparation for disaster mitigation. I think that is what I want to say," he said.

At least 150,322 people have been affected by floods in several parts of Indonesia in the period from October 3 to 9, 2022, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) earlier reported.

"A total of 150,322 people have been affected by the floods. Currently, there are still refugees at 80 points," the agency's acting head of disaster data, information, and communication center, Abdul Muhari, noted during a disaster briefing in Jakarta on Monday.

He said that the October 3–9 period broke the record for the most disaster events compared to previous weeks, with 70 disasters reported that were dominated by wet hydrometeorological disasters.

The 70 disasters consisted of 69 wet hydrometeorological disasters and one dry hydrometeorological incident.

"Of these 70 incidents, some 36 involved flooding, 18 landslides, and 15 extreme weather events," Muhari informed.

The North Aceh district of Aceh province is still affected by floods and the water level has not subsided so far due to rainfall of fairly high intensity, he said.

The dominant rainfall distribution has been in the northern and southern parts of Sumatra Island, while rainfall has been evenly distributed on the south coast of Java, Muhari said.

Based on an analysis conducted on October 7, phenomena such as storms, which resulted in cloud accumulation and increased rainfall intensity, were observed along the south coast of Java.

"The rainfall is almost evenly distributed from the west end to the east end, starting from Pangandaran, Sukabumi, Garut, Trenggalek, Jember, Banyuwangi—all of them are affected," he informed. (Antaranews)