Floods, the most common disaster in West Kalimantan
Floods in West Kalimantan during the January-March 2024 period occurred in 10 districts and affected 102,671 people.
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By
EMANUEL EDI SAPUTRA
·3 minutes read
DOKUMENTASI PRIBADI WARGA
Floods hit Serawai District, Sintang Regency, West Kalimantan, from Wednesday (6/3/2024) to Thursday (7/3/2024).
PONTIANAK, KOMPAS — Floods are the type of disaster that occurs most often in West Kalimantan in the period January-March 2024 compared to landslides and water waves pickaxe. A total of 29,230 families or 102,671 people and 24,765 houses were affected by flooding during that period.
Based on the disaster data recap released by the Chairman of the Disaster Information Task Force of the West Kalimantan Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD), Daniel, on Tuesday (16/4/2024), there have been 16 floods in West Kalimantan from January to March 2024.
So far, there have been no tornado disasters. For landslides, during that period there were three incidents.
Flooding during the period of January-March 2024 occurred in 10 regencies, including in Kubu Raya Regency on January 8 and March 9. Then, in Ketapang Regency on March 2 and Melawi Regency on March 3-8.
In addition to that, Sanggau Regency is not exempt from floods, which occurred on January 19. Similar events also occurred in Sekadau Regency on January 11 and March 9. Floods also hit Bengkayang Regency on January 4 and March 1.
Floods occurred in Sambas District on January 1st and March 1st. Meanwhile, floods in Kapuas Hulu District occurred twice, namely on January 3rd and March 1st to 15th.
DOKUMENTASI PRIBADI SAPARUDIN
Floods in Melawi Regency on the banks of the Melawi River, West Kalimantan, Friday (8/3/2024).
Flooding occurs most frequently in Sintang Regency, with three incidents on January 12th, February 24th, and March 6th-8th. The latest incident was in Landak Regency with one flooding incident on January 7th.
The District Head of Embaloh Hilir, Kapuas Hulu Regency, Nasharudin, once revealed that some residents in the Embaloh Hilir District went to the mosque for Tarawih prayers last month by using boats because floods had inundated the access in residential areas. Many residents in the area do own boats as they already know that floods are common.
Due to frequent floods in recent years, residents in other flood-prone areas have revitalized their stilt houses because they have proven to be adaptive and able to float during floods.
For example, Juna (33), a resident of Tempunak District, Sintang Regency, said that after the major flood that occurred in Sintang in 2021, he and several other residents revitalized elevated houses as a place to save their belongings and take refuge during floods.
In the end, the practice of extracting natural resources not only succeeded in giving birth to an ecological disaster, but also a social disaster.
The Executive Director of the Indonesian Environmental Forum (Walhi), Hendrikus Adam, referred to it as an ecological disaster on Wednesday (April 17, 2024). The ongoing floods with increasing intensity recently depict that the condition of the earth, where the residents of West Kalimantan live, is becoming more fragile.
The extraction of natural resources through unlimited extractive economic practices has been going on for a long time, even until now. This has contributed to ecological imbalances, with its inevitable destructive power.
Regarding this, efforts to restore critical areas do not correlate with restoring ecosystem functions. Instead, what is happening is that extractive practices of natural resources continue to persist until now, with various modes or excuses.
Furthermore, Adam stated that the practice of extracting natural resources not only leads to ecological disasters but also social disasters through their potential or risk of conflicts.
Kompas notes, based on the results of Auriga Nusantara's analysis, shows that Indonesia's deforestation in 2023 will reach 257,384 hectares. Ironically, deforestation predominantly occurs in state forest areas.
Deforestation was also observed to be wider than the previous year. In 2022, deforestation will be recorded at 230,760 hectares.
From its distribution, the largest deforestation record is in Kalbar region with 35,162 hectares, followed by Central Kalimantan (30,433 hectares), East Kalimantan (28,633 hectares), Central Sulawesi (16,679 hectares), South Kalimantan (16,067 hectares), North Kalimantan (14,316 hectares), Riau (13,268 hectares), and South Papua (12,640 hectares).
Kompas noted that river watersheds (DAS) in West Kalimantan have also been in critical condition for a long time. Based on data received by Kompas from the Kapuas Watershed and Protected Forest Management Center in 2019, of the approximately 14 million hectares of watershed area in West Kalimantan, around 1 million hectares are critical. Most of the critical areas are in the Kapuas watershed.
