Southeast Aceh Flood Damaged 467.25 Hectares Of Agricultural Land

Documentation - One of the agricultural land damaged by floods in Semadam District, Southeast Aceh, Wednesday (15/11/2023). (ANTARA/HO-Diskominfo Southeast Aceh)

The Aceh Disaster Management Agency (BPBA) said that agricultural land with an area of about 467.25 hectares was reportedly damaged due to the flash floods in Southeast Aceh Regency some time ago, which was triggered by high intensity rainfall.

BPBA Chief Executive Ilyas said the damaged agricultural land includes corn, rice, onions, and chili plant land.

"The corn area is about 324 hectares, about 142 hectares of rice land, 0.25 hectares of onions and about 1 hectare of chili land," said Ilyas through a statement from the BPBA Data and Information Center (Pusdatin) reported by ANTARA, Thursday, November 16.

He explained that floods overflowed and flash floods hit Southeast Aceh on Monday (13/11) at around 20.00 WIB, with water levels between 20-30 centimeters. The latest data shows that 63 villages were affected by flooding in 15 sub-districts.

The 15 sub-districts are Bambel, Semadam, Babussalam, Lawe Bulan, Ketambe, Lawe Sumur, Bukit Tusam, Tanoh Alas, Babul Rahmah, Lawe Alas, Darul Hasanah, Deleng Pokhisen, Lawe Sigala-gala, Babul Makmur and Badar Districts.

Southeast Aceh floods were triggered by high rainfall that flushed almost all parts of Southeast Aceh at that time, causing the Lawe Kinga River, Pasar Tuntung River, Lawe Alas River, Lawe Bulan River and Bukit Baru Mount Malas River to overflow.

"As a result, the mud, stone and logs carried by the currents flooded into residential areas," he said.

In addition to destroying residents' agricultural land, he said, the incident damaged a lot of infrastructure, both owned by the government, the community and private property, such as damaged houses, broken bridges, damaged bridges and others.

The affected victims were 5,964 people in 1,694 families (KK). A toddler after 2 years died due to being swept away, two people were injured and 10 residents in Semadam District fled because they had lost their homes to be hit by flash floods.

"The last condition is that the water has receded," said Ilyas.

From the first day until now, said Ilyas, the Southeast Aceh BPBD together with cross-sectors in the area continue to carry out flood prevention such as data collection, disbursement of victims, cleaning of mud and wood materials, normalizing rivers, establishing posts, public kitchens, and providing other assistance to the community.

As is the case today, continued BPBD Southeast Aceh together with cross-sectoral cross-sectors carried out cleaning on the road in Pasar Tuntung Village, Semadam District using a heavy device of the type of gredder andlooder.

Then, the temporary installation of emergency wood bridges for two-wheelers in Mbarung Village, Babussalam District, as well as cleaning up public facilities for places of worship, school houses and residents' houses.

"Those who also deployed three units of the fire department cleaned up mud and wood debris on the road of people's houses and others," he said.