The Center Was Alluded To In The Medan Pilkada Debate, The PUPR Ministry Will Immediately Rehabilitate The Belawan River

PUPR Minister Basuki Hadimuljono observes the flood location in Tanjung Selamat Village, Deli Serdang (ANTARA)

MEDAN - The Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) will immediately rehabilitate the Belawan River in Deli Serdang Regency, North Sumatra, following the floods that occurred some time ago.

"We will build a 'ground sill' (a building across the river) downstream. It raises the riverbed so that the current is not too heavy so it doesn't hit the left and right of the cliff," said PUPR Minister Mochamad Basuki Hadimuljono while inspecting the flood location in Tanjung Selamat Village, Deli. Serdang quoted Antara, Monday, December 7.

Basuki said that he would immediately compaction the embankments on the riverbanks.

"This cliff is also not properly constructed, because it appears that there is no compaction. Later we will compact it and repair the river," he said.

He promised to complete the repair within three weeks.

"Hopefully the three weeks will be over because there is still the possibility of even bigger rains to come according to BMKG," he explained.

Previously, the flood that inundated hundreds of houses in De Flamboyan Housing, Tanjung Selamat Village since early Friday, November 4 resulted in the death of six people.

Floods occurred because the embankment of the Belawan River was broken, which was unable to accommodate the discharge of the river so that the water overflowed and inundated the residents' houses.

The Medan flood issue was mentioned in the Medan Pilkada debate. At that time, two candidate pairs Akhyar Nasution-Salman Alfarisi and Bobby Nasution-Aulia Rachman talked about flooding and coordination with regencies around Medan.

Floods became a topic of debate related to panelist questions regarding strategies related to the optimization of the Mebidangro metropolitan area (Medan-Binjai-Deli Serdang-Karo).

"As we said the president, governor, mayor are political positions. When there was a big flood in North Sumatra which covered several districts, cities and if it was said a failure, this was not a failure in Medan. But the failure of the central collaboration with the province, and the provincial collaboration with the city of Medan, "said Salman.

"Therefore what happens is that each of us has a working area, the city of Medan has a working area as well as the BWS river (river basin) directly under the central government," said Salman.