Indonesia Flooding Kills 25

Flooding in the Indonesian capital has affected around 75 percent of the city, an official said Monday as the death toll from the disaster hit 25. Some 340,000 others have been forced from their homes.

Storm waters that inundated scores of residential areas and shopping districts late last week were still 10 feet deep in places, witnesses and Anwar Arifin, from Jakarta's flood information center, said.

"As of today, 75 percent of Jakarta remains flooded," Arifin said.

Hundreds of people remained on the second floors of their houses, either trapped or unwilling to abandon them despite warnings that muddy water running four meters deep in places may rise in the coming days.

"Jakarta is now on the highest alert level," said Sihar Simanjuntak, an official monitoring the water levels of the many rivers that crisscross the city of 12 million people. "The floods are getting worse."

The government dispatched medical teams on rubber rafts into the worst-hit districts amid fears that disease may spread among residents living in squalid conditions with limited access to clean drinking water.

Edi Darma, an official at Jakarta's Flood Crisis Center, said the death toll from flooding in Jakarta and surrounding towns had reached 20 as of late Sunday, mostly either by drowning or electrocution.

"We were starving for two days," said Sri Hatyati, who was rescued from her house by soldiers on a dinghy Sunday on the city's western outskirts. "All we had were dried noodles. We were unable to go anywhere."

Incessant rain over Jakarta and hills to its south from Thursday triggered the city's worst floods in recent memory, inundating tens of thousands of homes, school and hospitals in poor and wealthy districts alike.

Authorities have cut off electricity and the water supply in many districts.

Dr. Rustam Pakaya, from the health ministry's crisis center, said nearly 340,000 people had been made homeless, many of whom are staying with friends or family or at mosques and government buildings.

"We fear that diarrhea and dysentery may break out, as well as illnesses spread by rats," Pakaya said. "People must be careful not to drink dirty water."

There was little rainfall over Jakarta on Sunday, but fresh flooding occurred as heavy downpours over the southern hills in Puncak caused rivers to swell across the city, prompting authorities to open flood gates.

An Associated Press photographer saw Red Cross officials ferrying water and food to people cut off by the floods in downtown districts. TV footage showed people standing on roofs, and cars overturned.

Indonesia's meteorological agency is forecasting rain for the next two weeks.

Environment Minister Racmat Witoelar blamed poor urban planning for the disaster.

"Authorities hand out (building permits) even though they clearly violate environmental impact studies," The Jakarta Post newspaper quoted him as saying.

Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso, who was criticized when massive floods struck the city five years ago, blamed widespread deforestation in Puncak, saying it had destroyed water catchment areas.

Seasonal downpours cause dozens of landslides and flash floods each year in Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of 17,000 islands, where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile plains.

Jakarta is regularly struck with floods, though not on the scale as in recent days. Dozens of slum areas near rivers are washed out each year. Residents either refuse or are too poor to vacate the districts.