Jakarta on health alert over floods

By Mita Valina Liem

JAKARTA (Reuters) - More than 50,000 residents in the Indonesian capital have sought treatment for conditions ranging from coughs to diarrhea after days of floods and authorities are monitoring for more serious diseases, officials said on Monday.

The flooding has displaced 340,000 people and killed nearly 30. Water in parts of the tropical city of nine million people has been up to 4 meters (13 feet) deep, causing blackouts, cutting telephone lines and blocking key roads.

Indonesia regularly suffers floods during the rainy season, but the devastation of recent days has been the worst in five years, and meteorology officials have warned the city could suffer heavy rains until the end of the month.

Tini Suryanti of the Jakarta health department said 170 medical posts had treated 53,108 patients over two days for mostly minor ailments.

But Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari told reporters that authorities were on alert for outbreaks of more serious cases of diarrhea or diseases such as typhoid, cholera and measles.

Ketut Untung Yoga Ana, a Jakarta police spokesman, said 29 people had been killed, mostly electrocuted or drowned, while others died of sickness.

"In Jakarta, Bekasi and Tangerang, 340,000 people have been displaced," Rustam Pakaya, a health ministry official, said by telephone, referring to two areas around the capital.

The Indonesian military said it had deployed more than 4,000 soldiers and provided dozens of dinghys and trucks to help flood-hit residents.

Bayu Krisnamurthi, head of a body tackling bird flu, said the flooding could spread infected poultry and complicate measures against the virus that has killed 63 people in the country.

After heavy overnight rain, sunshine bathed the capital on Monday, although an official at the country's meteorology agency said some downpours were likely with fluctuating intensity.

Floods in the city can often spring up in one area and recede in another as water from rain in upstream areas such as Bogor feeds into rivers criss-crossing the city.

GOVERNOR DEFENDS HANDLING OF FLOODS

Newspaper editorials questioned on Monday why more had not been done to prevent flooding in the low-lying city originally built on swampland after severe flooding five years ago.

Jakarta governor Sutiyoso told Elshinta radio that people in areas in danger of flooding must evacuate. He also brushed aside criticism of his administration's handling of the crisis.

"This is a natural phenomenon that happens once every five years, like in 2002, and may happen again five years from now. What is important is how we minimize the losses."