Alert! Hydrometeorological Disasters Still Lurking Indonesia In January-February

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) asked the public to increase awareness of hydrometeorological disasters such as floods and landslides. Moreover, Indonesia is currently entering the rainy season.

"During the rainy season, the potential for hydrometeorological disasters is still there, especially the soil conditions are now saturated due to being filled with rain before," said LIPI Limnology Research Center researcher Iwan Ridwansyah, when contacted by Antara, Tuesday, January 19.

Iwan said that Indonesia will experience a peak rainy season in January-February, so it needs to be more vigilant about hydrometeorological disasters.

According to Iwan, areas that have the potential for landslides are those that have a high slope. People in these areas must of course be vigilant by paying attention to the appeal from the local Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD).

If possible, people are advised to immediately evacuate to a safe location.

Iwan said that many factors influence the increase in floods and landslides, including extreme rain, land conversion, reduction in the capacity of channels or rivers and man-made actions.

Apart from hydrometeorological disasters, hydro-climatological disasters also have the potential to cause flash floods and other bad weather.

To reduce the impact of disasters in the future, spatial planning for districts and / or cities that are at high potential for disasters must be redesigned based on disaster-based scientific analysis.

Indonesia is prone to high and varied levels of natural disasters, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and landslides.

The National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) recorded that 136 natural disasters occurred in Indonesia during 1-16 January 2021.

The most frequent disasters were floods with 95 incidents, landslides with 25 incidents, tornado 12 events and earthquakes 2 events. Of the many natural disasters, have claimed 80 lives and injured 858 people.