The peak of this year’s rainy season would last until March. Medium-to-high intensity rain will occur in most of the country.
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Kompas/Rony Ariyanto Nugroho
A search and rescue (SAR) dog helps police and military personnel look for possible disaster victims in Riung Gunung, Puncak, Bogor regency, West Java, Tuesday (6/2). Besides claiming human lives, landslides in the Puncak area on Monday (5/2) also paralyzed traffic on the Bogor-Puncak road.
BOGOR, KOMPAS – Now that the search for landslide victims has ended, disaster management in Puncak is focused on repairing road access in landslide-hit regencies of Bogor and Cianjur. Repairing roads and reinforcing cliffs is important to prevent further landslides.
Four spots in Puncak, namely at Gunung Mas, Riung Gunung, around Atta’awun Mosque and near Puncak Pass in Cianjur near the Cianjur-Bogor border are the focus of the Public Works and Public Housing Ministry’s disaster response efforts. “Through this disaster response, we hope we can reopen the road within 10 days, in line with the original plan,” the ministry’s Metropolitan 2 National Road implementation unit head Aryatno Sihombing said at the site of the landslide in Gunung Mas on Thursday (8/2/2018).
On Tuesday, officials said the road to Puncak would be closed for four-wheel vehicles for 10 days. The plan is to reopen the road next Friday.
Disaster response in Gunung Mas includes the installation of bamboo-pole reinforcement, sand bags and gabions to prevent further landslides.
On Thursday, Bogor regency Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) officers urged street-side sellers in landslide-prone areas, including in Gunung Mas, to empty their shops. “Stalls in landslide-prone areas must be torn down,” Bogor Satpol PP peace and order section head Heindrick Edmond Seumahu said.
The Public Works and Public Housing Ministry plans to widen the road on the cliff’s side. The other side of the road will be closed, as it was affected by landslides and would be too dangerous if kept open.
Movable concrete barriers (MCB) will be installed, and motorists will drive closer to the cliffs. The road median will also be shifted toward the cliff’s side in the landslide-affected road, which will remain open for two-way traffic.
The ministry is also preparing permanent solutions for the landslide-affected spots on the Puncak Road, including soil investigation and topographic measurements. “We plan to complete work in one spot in three days,” Aryatno said.
Upon completion of this assessment work, the ministry’s national road planning and monitoring (P2JM) team and road and bridge research and development center will make the designs. The designs will be finished in around 14 days. Afterwards, workers will begin to work on this permanent solution.
Peak of rainy season
The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) said that the peak of this year’s rainy season would last until March. Medium-to-high intensity rain will occur in most of the country, especially on Java.
Floods and landslides are also expected to occur in regions outside Java. The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) has recorded 275 disasters so far this year, which resulted in 30 people being killed or reported missing, 66 sustaining injuries, 153,183 affected and evacuated and 10,254 homes and 92 public facilities damaged.
BNPB spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in Jakarta on Thursday that landslides were the leading cause of disaster deaths, accounting for 19 of the total. Other than Puncak, landslides hit several other regions this past week, including Banyuwangi, East Java, where two people died and one sustained serious injuries.
Earlier, BMKG head Dwikorita Karnawati explained that Indonesia was still in the rainy season. Landslides on Java may expand to other regions, especially to regions with mountains, hills and cliffs in residential zones.
The landslide in Puncak was widely reported due to the region’s vital role in connecting Bogor, Cianjur and Sukabumi. It is also a weekend vacation spot for tens of thousands of people. Damage in Puncak and Bogor is linked to flooding in Jakarta.
Disaster management efforts that involve the central government include the construction of dams in Sukamahi and Ciawi in Megamendung district near Puncak. The two dried dams were not aimed to irrigate rice fields but to serve as temporary reservoirs for rainwater in Puncak, including from Cisukabirus River, which is blamed for flooding in Jakarta.
