Dozens Of Damaged Houses, Street Lamps And Fallen Trees In Strong Winds In Jember

A house was damaged by strong winds accompanied by heavy rain in Jember Regency, Sunday (16/1/2022) afternoon. (ANTARA/HO-BPBD Jember)

JEMBER - Dozens of houses and places of business in two sub-districts in Jember Regency, East Java were damaged by strong winds accompanied by heavy rain on Sunday, January 16 in the afternoon into the evening.

"Two areas were severely affected, namely Arjasa Subdistrict in Kemuning Lor Village and Patrang Subdistrict in Baratan Village," said Jember BPBD Secretary Heru Widagdo in the local district, as reported by Antara, Monday, January 17.

According to him, there were no fatalities, either injured or dead in the strong winds that occurred in the two sub-districts, but several trees were uprooted, houses and businesses were damaged.

"High winds also caused the public street lighting network (PJU) to be cut off and two poles toppled, Telkom's cable network was cut off and while connecting roads between villages were completely closed due to fallen trees across the road," he said.

He explained that a total of 32 buildings that were damaged by the strong winds were damaged, either lightly, moderately, or heavily, namely the damage to houses, business premises and livestock barns belonging to residents.

"In detail, 24 houses were lightly damaged, three houses were moderately damaged, one house was heavily damaged. Two business premises were slightly damaged and one was moderately damaged, and one chicken coop was also damaged," he said.

TRC BPBD Jember has carried out an assessment related to the damage to the house and a cleaning process has been carried out, as well as efforts to help repair the impact of the damage.

"Cleaning up the impact of the strong wind disaster continued this Monday morning because last night at the location there was still a power outage because many PJU lights in the affected location had collapsed," he said.

In addition, he continued, the Jember BPBD also brought the Jitupasna Team to locations affected by strong winds to calculate the amount of losses because there were light, moderate to heavy damage.

Heru appealed to the public to always be aware of strong wind disasters that could occur at any time and to avoid places prone to collapse.