BPBD Asks 6 Districts In Parigi Moutong, Central Sulawesi To Beware Of Flash Floods, Immediately Normalize Rivers

Head of BPBD Parigi Moutong Idran (Photo: ANTARA)

SULAWESI - The Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) said that many rivers in Parigi Moutong Regency, Central Sulawesi have the potential to cause flooding due to silting.

"Shallowing of the river floor is due to the large amount of sedimentation. If normalization is not carried out when it rains with heavy intensity for a long time, it can cause water to overflow and cause flooding," said Head of Parigi BPBD Moutong Idran, in Parigi, as reported by Antara, Friday, July 2.

BPBD mapping has 6 sub-districts in Parigi Moutong Regency which are potentially vulnerable to the threat of flooding. Namely, the Districts of Balinggi, Sausu, Parigi, Tinombo, Tomini and Moutong Districts.

Parigi District has a history of flash floods that occurred nine years ago, or to be exact in 2012. The disaster was also repeated in 2020 which swept away dozens of houses of Boyantongo Village residents, South Parigi District, the incident occurred during the rainy season.

"People must always be vigilant and careful, especially those who live around riverbanks. In addition, the importance of early mitigation is to minimize the impact of material losses and casualties due to disasters," said Idran.

He said that in anticipating and overcoming the impact of disasters, cross-sectoral collaboration is needed. For example, river normalization requires the involvement of the Public Works Service and the Sulawesi River Region III (BWSS III) as technical agencies in the infrastructure sector.

Because the river in the Parigi Moutong area has the authority of the local district government and there is also the authority of BWSS III, so that collaboration must be improved.

"In addition to infrastructure, there is also synergy in the education, health, social and economic sectors because the impact of the disaster covers all sectors, so collaboration is needed," he said.

He added, in the context of mitigation, prevention and management of disaster risk, the local BPBD has launched a special application for the Parigi Moutong disaster information system, a fast, complete and accurate disaster information service solution (Sibimo).

This application has various uses, one of which is a means to report a disaster event in the district, including handling emergency response and logistics information services, and the application can be accessed by the public easily through a browser.

"This is part of the innovation to detect and deal with natural and non-natural disasters in Parigi Moutong," said Idran.