January 04, 2020

Andrew Campbell 

On New Year’s Eve, Dec. 31, 2019, a devastating flood hit the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta. At least 53 people were killed as a result of the flood and hundreds of thousands have been relocated as the wider Jakarta area has experienced the most severe rain in the last 24 years.

Previously, two small aircraft had been prepared to drop sodium chloride to break up possible rain clouds in the skies above the Sunda Strait, the technology agency of Indonesia said.

On Thursday, services at Halim Perdanakusuma, the city's second-largest airport and the capital's air force base, went back to normal. Nevertheless, parts of Jakarta and surrounding areas remain flooded and have no power after New Year's Eve after rainfall of as much as 377 mm a day. The weather agency predicts in the next two weeks the adverse weather to continue.

Local police used hundreds of pumps on Thursday to suck water from residential neighborhoods and public infrastructure such as railways.

Photo:Webshot.