Jokowi Reveals The Cause Of The Sintang Flood, Not Only Due To Extreme Rain But Also Damage To Watersheds

President Joko Widodo (Photo: Twitter @jokowi)

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) said that extreme weather factors were not only the cause of flooding in Sintang Regency, West Kalimantan. He said the damage to watersheds and rain catchment areas made this disaster happen.

He conveyed this after reviewing the construction of a flood control embankment and visiting flood disaster refugees in Sintang Regency, December 8.

"This happened first, there was indeed extreme rain and second, we need to overcome this, namely damage to watersheds, damage to rain catchment areas," Jokowi said in a press conference broadcast on the Presidential Secretariat's YouTube.

Furthermore, the government will take quick steps to overcome the flood problem. The short-term plan, said Jokowi, is that the PUPR Ministry will build a geotube filled with sand.

"We hope that in the short term we can reduce the existing flooding," he said.

Meanwhile, for the long-term plan, replanting or reforestation in the Kapuas and Melawi watersheds and rainwater catchment areas will soon be carried out. So, in the future, a similar disaster will not happen again.

"We are preparing, namely replanting, tree planting, reforestation of areas around the Kapuas and Melawi rivers. I hope that this will improve the catchment area (rainwater catchment area)," said Jokowi.

As previously reported, President Joko Widodo is scheduled to review flood management works in Sintang, West Kalimantan in the form of embankments made of geo-bags or bags made of special sand filled.

The construction of the embankment made from geo-bags, which is located on the banks of the Melawi River, Ladang Village, Sintang District, continues to be pursued as an effort to overcome the flood disaster in the area.

Construction Manager of PT Wijaya Karya (Wika) Daniel Resdianto said the construction concept of geobags (sand bags) and geotubes (sand tubes) is about 13.2 kilometers long and is divided into three areas. He said the embankment made of sandbags would be the quickest and most effective in dealing with the La Nina threat which is predicted to occur in February 2022.