Reducing The Impact Of Floods And Landslides, BNPB Sows 2 Tom Garam In Langit Lampung And Central Java

JAKARTA - A total of two tons of salt or Sodium Choride (NaCl) was nursed into potential clouds in the sky of Lampung and Central Java Provinces (Central Java) by the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) team on Friday, January 24.

Head of the BNPB Disaster Data, Information and Communication Center Abdul Muhari in his statement quoted via Antara as saying the weather modification operation was to accelerate the emergency handling of floods and landslides that hit Lampung and Central Java.

This weather modification operation has been started since yesterday, Thursday, January 23 and will continue at least until tomorrow, Saturday, January 25.

Rain with high intensity flushed Lampung and Central Java Provinces in the past week triggered floods and landslides in a number of areas on January 20-22, 2025.

According to Abdul, a joint team of officers in each affected area in Lampung and Central Java are still handling disaster emergencies such as evacuating residents, collecting data on victims suffering and also distributing logistical assistance.

Therefore, he said, the potential for rain needs to be redistributed so as not to pour heavily into areas affected by the disaster but rain is directed into the sea. This is like the experience experienced by BNPB in several previous weather modification operations.

Based on BNPB data, floods hit five regencies/cities in Lampung Province with significant damage impacts on mid-2022 January. Starting from 14,842 units of residents' houses and causing two deaths in Bandarlampung City.

Central Lampung Regency 264 housing units and 2 bridge units were damaged up to 81 hectares of land. Pringsewu Regency as many as 629 residents were displaced, in East Lampung 2,183 people fled and submerged 4,456.4 hectares of rice fields. South Lampung Regency was recorded as many as 18 houses were damaged and 146 hectares of rice fields were flooded.

In the same period, heavy rain also triggered floods and landslides with significant amounts of victims and impacts of infrastructure damage such as bridges, roads, and to residents' houses in Pekalongan, Grobogan, Kendal, Batang and Demak Regencies in Central Java Province.

Meanwhile, it was reported that more than 30 thousand residents suffered from the disaster in the five districts. BNPB confirmed that as of Thursday, January 23, there were 22 people who died, including toddlers aged 5 months, 13 people were injured, and there were still four people missing in the search process in Petungkriyono Village, Pekalongan.