Disease fears rise in Indonesia's capital
Reuters, Jakarta
Fears of disease gripped Indonesia's flood-hit capital on Friday with thousands of people living in cramped emergency shelters and some streets still inundated a week after the city's worst floods in five years. Authorities are on guard for outbreaks of diarrhoea, cholera or skin disease as torrential rains overnight triggered fresh flooding in the low-lying city of around 14 million people. "We are concentrating on health issues to prevent diarrhoea, cholera and leptospirosis (a disease spread by rats and mice) outbreaks by clearing up places and water sanitation," Rustam Pakaya, the health ministry's crisis centre chief, told Reuters. "There are three cases of leptospirosis reported. All of the patients are treated. No cases of tetanus have been reported." The floods in Jakarta have killed 57 people and more than 250,000 are still displaced from their homes, many sheltering under flyovers or in plastic tents near graveyards. A group of horse carriage operators huddled under one East Jakarta flyover with their carriages and horses as ankle-high manure spread around and mixed with cooking utensils. Several blocks away in a seaside slum, children tried to net small fish in a wide gutter where brownish water gushed while a flock of ducks swam on a garbage-filled river nearby. Traffic moved slowly and several cars broke down as parts of a city highway were inundated by water following the floods that have also caused blackouts and cut telecommunications.
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Flood victims clean up their neighbourhood after floodwaters receded in Jakarta yesterday. The floods in Jakarta, the worst in at least five years, have claimed 50 lives and displaced about 500,000 people in the capital and surrounding towns. PHOTO: AFP |
