Chevron oil pipe explodes, 2 injured

Antara News, Thursday, October 28, 2010 13:27 WIB

Pekanbaru, Riau (ANTARA News) - A crude oil pipeline of PT Chevron Pacific Indonesia had burst harming two children in Manggala Jonson Village, Tanah Putih sub district, Rokan Hilir District, Riau province on Thursday.

"Two children were badly burned in the explosion," a resident, Andi said.

The pipeline located near the village burst at 7 am at the local time and also caused injuries to Wanda (6) and Rini (16).

The children were badly injured as they covered by oil and their skin had blisters. The two had been taken to the Chevron medical center, Andi said.

"The sound of the explosion was so loud that I thought it was a bomb. The oil spurt 10 meters high," he said.

Three houses of Anto, Sukidi and Yunus were covered with the crude oil.

The dark black oil spilled the walls, roofs and the yards.

A motorcycle was thrown 15 meters away by the force of the explosion, he said.

The chief of Crime and Investigation Unit of Rohil Police, Adjunct Commissioner Arif Hidayat Ritonga said he had sent a number of police personnel to the location to secure the accident site, near the Trans Sumatran road leading to Medan , North Sumatra.

The company had sent a representative to the location to clear up the oil spill on that also hit a number of houses, he said.

Jakarta will (not) submerge?

The Jakarta Post, Firdaus Ali, Jakarta | Sat, 10/09/2010 10:17 AM | Opinion

What are the real ongoing and continuing environmental problems facing Jakarta? The academic answer is the carrying capacity that is no longer able to support the continuing increase of population.

This is because the city with an area of 662 square kilometers is poorly planned and managed so it is not able to accommodate its fast growing population demand for services. Hence, the city contributes pressure to the environment beyond its limited carrying capacity.

One of its essential resources for the city carrying capacity is water resources. What are the problems related with the water resources? First, we view it from water resources stressful aspect that is the increasing capacity of runoff, especially the effect of climate change, which creates climate anomaly and the degradation of water storage capacity, and infiltration of the soil, which extends from the upstream area to the Jakarta area itself.

The real impact of all these phenomenon is the flooding and stagnant water that occurs almost every rainfall (in the upstream area as well as within the city itself). Stagnant water and flooding are the real paralyzing cause for the city’s chaotic and extreme traffic congestion. This situation is exacerbated by the condition of a dilapidated drainage infrastructure system (it was designed some 30-40 years ago).

More ironically, almost all of the drainage canals are no longer properly functioning because they are mostly covered by buildings and piles of sediment and solid waste.

The second issue is the limited resources to meet the city’s water demand, especially clean piped water to meet the city water needs. This creeping problem has been linked to the serious urban ecological issue that is currently receiving public attention, particularly after the collapse of Jl. RE Martadinata in North Jakarta. What are the causal relations of land subsidence and the limited supply of clean piped water?

A very limited piped water service coverage ratio, which is only able to supply about 44 percent of the total Jakarta water demand, along with a very high water tariff (presently averaging Rp 7,400 per cubic meter), excessive groundwater abstraction occurs especially by commercial entities (hotels, apartments, malls, office buildings and industries).

The massive groundwater exploitation exceeding its natural recharge capacity has continually caused the lowering of a deep groundwater table and eventually causing land subsidence in many locations in the city.

On the other hand, the city also has to face the rising sea water level due to global warming. These two phenomena will threaten the city’s livable future, because some part of the urban area will likely submerge permanently if there is no technology, policy as well as social engineering intervention provided to mitigate the causes.

What are the available solutions for this very basic and essential urban problem? First is the need to rehabilitate and improve the whole city’s drainage networks system starting from the micro, collector and macro drainage systems.

Second, is the need to control the runoff by maximizing the water infiltration and retention (storage capacity) on land surface through the construction of ponds, lakes, dams, as well as underground water storage (reservoir), which in turn could also be used as additional raw water sources for the Jakarta-owned water supply company (PAM Jaya).

Third, it is to restrict immediately the deep groundwater exploitation by adequately supplying clean piped water, and of course with affordable water tariffs. Adequately provided clean piped water can only be done by increasing the supply of raw water for processing.

In the condition that none of the rivers can be utilized due to pollution, increase the supply of clean piped water can only be carried out by first, reducing the water leakages, and second, by building a potable water supply provision system at Jatiluhur area, which originally was studied and proposed by the Jakarta Water Supply Regulatory Body.

Fourth, while awaiting completion of the Jatiluhur water supply system project, the business communities should be encouraged and obliged to carry out their domestic wastewater reclaimation measure in order to convert it into clean non-potable water. This measure would reduce the reliance on groundwater utilization as well as clean piped water for their water demand, whereas at the same time also reduce the amount of wastewater discharge into the water bodies.

Fifth, for a long-term perspective, we must revitalize all existing open water bodies such as rivers, streams, ponds and dams in order to make them suitable raw water sources for PAM Jaya and at the same time also provides city ammenities just as in other developed cities in the world provides its quality of life (as also mentioned in the Bible and the Koran that potrays heaven with streams and rives flowing).

All of these, of course, would need considerable investment, but the risks are much more costly when they become disasters, and at that time we would have little opportunity to make the necessary restorations.

The writer, a lecturer and researcher at the Environmental Engineering Department, the University of Indonesia, is founder of the Indonesian Water Institute and a member of Jakarta’s Water Resources Council.

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Disaster mitigation ‘neglected in post-quake reconstruction’

Syofiardi Bachyul Jb, The Jakarta Post, Padang | Wed, 10/06/2010 10:06 AM

The government is too busy rebuilding damaged facilities and infrastructure from the past earthquake, neglecting precautionary measures for a possible disaster in the future, an official says.

The head of the Provincial Board for Disaster Mitigation (BPBD), Ade Edward, said mitigation efforts should have been included in the rehabilitation program, especially because many houses and other buildings were located in areas prone to earthquakes.

“They need special handling,” he told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

The mitigation measures, he said, should include a policy on how to build quake-resistant buildings.

Ade added that in a number of residential complexes, houses were reconstructed to normal standards.

He criticized the fact that mitigation efforts were not included in the Rp 6.4 trillion-rehabilitation program.

The September 2009 earthquake killed more than a thousand people, destroyed nearly 250,000 houses, more than 400 regional administration offices, almost 5,000 education facilities and 153 hospitals.

Ade stressed the need for high levels of preparedness for similar disasters in the future.

“If an earthquake occurs and triggers a tsunami, the impact could be very serious as it would not just be a problem of buildings but also lack of evacuation lanes because we did not include mitigation aspects in the rehabilitation program,” he said.

Referring to an earthquake-tsunami threat map issued by the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry in 2008, Ade said tsunami-triggering earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 9 threatened coastal regions of West Sumatra.

A tsunami caused by such earthquakes, the map states, were predicted to reach between 3 and 6 meters high in Padang and to affect areas up to 2 kilometers inland within 35 to 50 minutes.

“The red zone is 500 meters from the beach,” Ade, who is also coordinator of the West Sumatra branch of the Association of Indonesian Geologists (IAGI) , said.

However, he added, as most of Padang’s residents lived along the coast, a tsunami could threaten 500,000 of the city’s population, or a million people living along the province’s coast.

Patra Rina Dewi, the executive director of Tsunami Alert Community (Kogami), expressed similar concerns, saying that the province had not prioritized disaster preparedness.

“The reconstruction program is not an excuse for neglecting disaster preparedness,” Patra said.

Kogami held a tsunami evacuation simulation in Padang Pariaman and other regencies last month involving 3,000 residents.

Operators claim major upgrade of pipe networks

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Wed, 10/06/2010 11:44 AM

The two tap water operators that serve Jakarta, PT PAM Lyonaise Jaya (Palyja) and PT Aetra Air Jakarta (Aetra), have announced they have completed major improvements to their infrastructure since they were established in 1998, claiming improved water quality, coverage and pressure.

Palyja, which serves the west side of Jakarta, says it has built 1,200 kilometers of new pipes and restored 850 kilometers of its existing 5,200 kilometers of pipes at a total cost of Rp 1.35 trillion (US$151.2 million) since 1998.

Palyja public relations manager Meyritha Maryanie said a further 3,000 kilometers of pipes needed to be restored.

The company booked a net profit of Rp 222 billion last year, up from Rp 136 billion in 2008.

“We realize that under such conditions, we won’t be able to supply enough water for the areas on the west side of the city but we have done what we can, especially amid a lack of water resources and also a lack of awareness among residents,” Meyritha told The Jakarta Post.

She said that her company drew the majority of its water from the Jatiluhur resevoir in West Java and another reservoir in Tangerang.

“We are planning to use water from the Pesanggrahan river as it often overflows during the rainy season. However we are still checking the quality of the water and negotiating with the authorities,” she said.

Palyja and Aetra have held the exclusive rights to manage the city’s tap water since 1998.

Aetra, then PT Thames PAM Jaya, has built 1,451 kilometers of new pipes to add to the 4,400 kilometers of pipes that it already had. Aetra serves residents on the east side of Jakarta.

Aetra general manager Agit Pratomo said the company was focused on allocating more money to expand its pipe network and build new pumps to increase water pressure this year.

“We understand that many of our customers have complained about our supply so we are allocating

Rp 300 billion to build 232 kilometers of pipes and two pressure pumps,” he said.

He said his company usually only spent an average of about Rp 120 billion per year on infrastructure

upgrades.

“We hope that private companies will become more aware of the need to use tap water in accordance with the 2007 bylaw,” he added, refering to a bylaw that stipulates that commercial and industrial buildings that tap into the ground water must pay taxes that are more costly than paying for tap water.

The companies do not produce enough tap water to meet demand. They are running at an estimated combined defecit of 4,000 liters of water per second this year, based on the assumption that the population of the city is growing at a rate of up to 0.3 percent per year.

In fact, the Jakarta Statistics Agency (BPS) recently announced that the population growth had reached 1.3 percent per year.

Earlier, experts said that almost all commercial buildings in the city used groundwater because of the lack in supply and coverage of tap water in the city. (rch)

Three reservoirs to anticipate water crisis

Antara News, Sunday, October 3, 2010 18:43 WIB

Bekasi, West Java (ANTARA News) - The Bekasi Tirta Bhagasasi Tap Water Company (PDAM) had built three water reservoirs to anticipate water supply crisis in the region.

"We have constructed three new reservoirs one of which in Pondok Ungu to maximize clean water distribution in the northern region," a public relations staff of the Bekasi PDAM Wawan said here Sunday.

The other two reservoirs had been built in South Cikarang and North Cikarang sub-districts, he said.

The reservoirs having capacity of 2,000 cubic meters and equipped with clean water distribution pipelines and pumps, are to supply clean water to residents in the northern region, he said.

The water reservoir in North Cikarang, however, had a 500 cubic meters capacity to supply clean water to North Cikarang and West Cikarang Sub-districts, he said, adding that the reservoir served the Sukatani Office where water was often polluted.

The water distribution pipelines in North Cikarang had a total length of 3 kilometers and a diameter of 600 millimeters, he said.

The Tap Water Company was also building a reservoir in Tegal Gede village, South Cikarang, he said, adding that will be able to hold 100 cubic meters of water, and fund for building it had been allocated from the Regional Budget.

Public relations chief of Tap Water Company Endang said the company had around 2,000 cubic meters of clean water of reservoirs to supply 147,000 customers in Bekasi.

"We could only supply 30 percent of the need of Bekasi Municipal residents and 20 percent of the needs of Bekasi District residents, he said, adding that Tirta Bhagasasi Tap Water Company was the second best of its kind in West Java after Bandung," he said.

Leaking Pipeline Forces Oil Shutdown

Jakarta Globe, Ririn Radiawati Kusuma | October 01, 2010

A gas pipeline sprung a leak at Chevron Pacific Indonesia’s Duri field in Sumatra, upstream oil and gas authority BPMigas said on Friday, resulting in a drop in production of 200,000 barrels per day. Darwin Zahedy Saleh, left in this file photo, the minister of energy and mineral resources said he was confident that an increase in production could compensate for the losses. (Antara Photo/Widodo S. Jusuf)   

    

Up to 20 percent of the nation’s oil production capacity is offline after a gas pipeline sprung a leak at Chevron Pacific Indonesia’s Duri field in Sumatra, upstream oil and gas authority BPMigas said on Friday.

The regulator said 200,000 barrels per day of production capacity had been shut down due to a leak in a pipeline that supplied natural gas used to power oil-field operations. It said the pipeline should be repaired by Monday, with full production resuming two days later.

“The wells’ recovery will be slow. They have to shut the wells down and reactivate them carefully,” he said.

Darwin Zahedy Saleh, the minister of energy and mineral resources, on Friday said he was confident that an increase in production — once it was resumed — could compensate for the losses and that the government would still meet its 2010 production target.

However, Rudi Rubiandini, an energy analyst and drilling expert from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), said that the lost production was likely to greatly exceed the government’s forecasts.

He estimated that fixing the underground pipe and returning oil production to normal would likely take more than two weeks, possibly even up to two months, depending on the extent of the damage.

“It will take a long time to fix the problem,” he said. “It depends on the damage to the pipe.”

Rudi added that there was little the government could do to reach its production target for this year.

“This is a huge loss,” he said, noting that CPI was one of the nation’s top oil producers, accounting for about 40 percent of total output.

The halt to production comes with oil companies already struggling to reach the government’s 2010 target of 965,000 bpd, a figure used to make revenue projections in this year’s state budget.

Production averaged 935,000 bpd during the first half of the year, and BPMigas last month said the government would sell three million barrels of crude oil from its stockpile to help meet the revenue target.

About 700 CPI wells and 400 wells operated by Pertamina-Bumi Siak Pusako, a unit of state oil and gas company Pertamina, were also shut down by the failure.

The problem began on Wednesday morning when a leak was discovered in the pipe operated by Transportasi Gas Indonesia. The pipeline, located at Indragiri Hulu in Riau, is used to supply natural gas to the field for drilling works and to generate electricity.

BPMigas first estimated Chevron’s lost production at 32,000 bpd, but that was already raised to 150,000 bpd by Friday afternoon.

CPI’s president director, Abdul Hamid Batubara, declined to set a timeline for a resumption in production.

“We are focused on fixing the pipeline so they [the wells] can function immediately. We are working with TGI to fix this,” he said.

Pri Agung Rakhmanto, an energy analyst with the Reforminer Institute, said he believed the breakdown would not affect the government’s 2010 production target, assuming the problem was fixed within several days. But he added that the target was unlikely to be met anyway.

“The leak is not the reason why the government can’t reach the 2010 oil production target,” he said.

Pri Agung said the incident at the aging Duri oil field should serve as a lesson that more attention was needed to develop new sources for the fuel.

“Optimizing existing blocks is not enough,” he said. “They have to develop more. But this takes time.”

West Sumatra gets first quake-proof building

Syofiardi Bachyul Jb, The Jakarta Post, Padang | Fri, 10/01/2010 8:25 AM

The West Sumatra administration has begun rebuilding its main office using advanced earthquake resistant technologies, a year after the previous office was decimated by a powerful earthquake.

A cornerstone laying ceremony was held Thursday by West Sumatra Governor Irwan Prayitno and National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) head Syamsul Maarif, exactly a year after the province was hit by the 7.9-magnitude earthquake.

Head of the West Sumatra Road Infrastructure and Transmigration Settlement Office Dody Ruswandi said the administration would rebuild government facilities damaged in the quake using quake-proof construction technologies to ensure their survival in a quake, and so that they could double as refugee centers in the event of an earthquake.

“Since experts have concluded that Padang and the surrounding coastal areas are prone to quakes and tsunami, we must build vertical buildings as well as escape routes from the coast,” he said.

The four-storey building — dubbed as the country’s first Escape Building — would be completed in November next year.

The first two floors of the Rp 46 billion (US$5.1 million) building will be for offices, and the top two floors will serve as shelters for up to 3,500 people in the event of a tsunami.

The walls at the base of the building are designed to collapse inward in the event of a tsunami, leaving the supporting structure intact.

The building incorporates various quake-proof designs, many of which are used in Japan.

It is specially designed to withstand forces 0.5 times greater than gravity in accordance with building standards in Japan and higher than a new regulation for quake-proof buildings in Indonesia that requires a strength rating of 0.4 times the force of gravity.

“The first refugee building built in Indonesia is actually designed to withstand quakes of over 10 on the Richter Scale,” said Dody.

The technology, which has been used in Japan since 1995, will feature in three other new buildings – the Dr. M. Djamil General Hospital in Padang, the Public Works and Transmigration and Settlement Office and the governor’s main office building.

Last year’s quake destroyed 442 office buildings.

The total reconstruction cost could reach Rp 6.4 trillion, including RP 897.4 billion to rebuild the government offices.

New site focuses on quake-proof homes

Syofiardi Bachyul Jb, The Jakarta Post, Padang | Wed, 09/29/2010 9:35 AM

The Australian government, through the Australia Indonesia Facility for Disaster Reduction (AIFDR), launched a website on quake-proof houses campaign it has been carrying out since early this year.

The launch of the website — www.rumahamangempa.net — coincides with the one year commemoration of the massive earthquake that hit West Sumatra on Sept. 30 last year, destroying 249,833 homes and more than 7,000 public facilities.

Australia’s Chargé d’Affaires to Indonesia Paul Robilliard struck a gong to mark the website’s official launch at the West Sumatra Cultural Park in provincial capital Padang on Tuesday. The event was attended by West Sumatra Governor Irwan Prayitno, National Disaster Mitigation Agency’s (BNPB) Disaster Prevention and Response Affairs deputy Sugeng Tro Utomo, West Sumatra Vice Governor Muslim Kasim and actress Jajang C. Noer, who played a role in the media campaign program.

Robilliard said the new campaign would also use social network mediums, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to disseminate the latest information.

“More people living in quake-prone areas such as West Sumatra can access important information by providing materials online,” he said.

The program, he added, was part of the Australian government’s commitment to help Indonesia minimize casualties and economic impact in the event of a disaster.

Robilliard said overall, Australia had provided A$15 million to assist the post-quake recovery, of which A$10 million had been used to rebuild 39 schools and community health centers.

Earlier at the ceremony, Robilliard and US Ambassador to Indonesia Scot Marciel signed a plaque for the reconstruction of the SD 19 state elementary school in Olo village, Nanggalo in Padang.

The school, which suffered extensive damage in the quake, was rebuilt at a cost of Rp 1.5 billion (US$165,000). The school, including 39 other schools, which were built by the combined efforts of the Australian and the US governments, are expected to be completed this year.

Marciel said his government had provided $12 million in assistance for quake mitigation efforts in West Sumatra.

“I’m relieved to see the school reconstruction has been implemented successfully,” he said.

Governor Irwan expressed gratitude for the assistance from the Australian and US governments.

He said the Padang quake devastated 1,078 schools of all levels. In the past year, only 402 schools have been rebuilt by domestic and overseas relief organizations, while 399 schools are still in the process of signing memorandums of understanding with various relief agencies.

“The remaining 263 schools have not yet been handled and will be built with special allocations from the municipal and the respective regency budgets,” Irwan said.

Dutch pump nominated for British innovation prize

RNW, 27 September 2010 | By Conny van den Bor

(Photo Auke Idzenga)

Dutchman Auke Idzenga has been nominated for the World Challenge 2010 for an ingenious water pump. He developed the idea in the Philippines where he lives. The machine pumps clean water high up into the mountains.

The pump is made of iron and uses parts that can be bought anywhere, like a door hinge or a car tyre. This makes it easy to maintain. It works on hydro power, so all it needs to generate electricity is a slope and a fast running stream.

Great heights

A large proportion of the water which passes through the pump can be transported to great heights.

"For every metre downwards, the pump can transport the water 20 to 30 times further, 24-hours-a-day. That is a lot of water.'

The World Challenge is an international competition for projects and companies which help local communities all over the world. Auke Idzenga feels deeply honoured. After being presented with the prestigious Ashden Award by Al Gore in 2007, he has now been nominated for the World Challenge by the BBC.

Clean drinking water

The invention has enabled Mr Idzenga's organisation AIDFI to supply clean drinking water to 150,000 people. People living high in the mountains used to have to make difficult trips every day to fetch water.

Mr Idzenga went to the Philippines to live more than 20 years ago. He came from a family of social activists. When he travelled to the far east as a radio operator on a ship, and saw the terrible poverty there, he decided to dedicate his life to the poor.

Hydraulic ram pump

He first became active in a trade union in the Philippines. The union set up the organisation AIDFI, Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation Inc, initially to support organic agriculture by applying simple technology which can be used anywhere.

"At technical college, I once worked on a hydraulic ram pump and it made a deep impression on me. When we set up AIDFI, I immediately remembered the pump. Back then the pumps were made of concrete, but I tinkered around with it until it was perfect and could be used anywhere."

Afghanistan

Meanwhile the pumps are being introduced in more and more countries. Laos and China have also joined the list. The most dangerous but also the most successful project was in Afghanistan.

"We built three installations there, under constant guard. Part of the job entails training local people to pass the technology on to others, so three Afghanis came to the Philippines for very intensive training."

The Afghanis then set up a shop and now they install pumps all over Afghanistan. The pumps enormously improve the quality of people's lives. People living in remote areas are able to wash themselves more frequently, which improves the hygiene. Cows and other livestock are healthier because they have access to water and people can grow their own vegetables. Some even sell their produce at markets. Mr Idzenga, "It is so rewarding!"

You can vote for Mr Idzenga's hydraulic ram pump project: The World Challenge 2010. The closing date for votes is 11 November. The award ceremony is on 4 December.

Unhan introduces disaster management program

The Jakarta Post | Sat, 09/25/2010 11:30 AM

JAKARTA: Indonesian Defense University (Unhan) introduced a new master study program on disaster management for national security.

Unhan, a state university under the Defense Ministry, said the new program was aimed at producing graduates to meet the need for experts who could help mitigate the impact of disasters and rehabilitate disaster-hit areas.

Unhan rector Maj. Gen. Syarifudin Tippe said Indonesia was wracked by many disasters. “Not many people realize the importance of understanding disasters, how to prepare for them, what to do when disasters strike and how it impacts the defense system,” he said in press release made available on Friday.

Applicants to the program are required to have a minimum TOEFL score of 500 and minimum Academic Potential Test score of 550. The program is open to members of the military and police corps as well as civilians.

Unhan said it would grant full scholarships to all students of the program, including covering the cost of field study to universities at home and abroad.

Every academic year, Unhan accepts between 20 and 30 students for each program. —JP

Coastal areas may disappear in coming decades

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sat, 09/25/2010 11:24 AM

Four districts on the north coast of Jakarta could be submerged within a century if the city administration does not address environmental issues in its spatial planning policies, an expert said.

“Research shows that the sea level on Jakarta’s coast has increased at a rate of 57 millimeters per year because of the effects of global warming on the polar ice caps,” Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) oceanology department chief Safwan Hadi said Friday.

The districts of Pademangan, Penjaringan, Tanjung Priok and Cilincing in North Jakarta would be flooded by a half-meter of sea water by 2100, Safwan said.

“However, the city will probably lose those areas sooner as we also find that soil in the area is subsiding by between 5 and 12 centimeters each year,” he added.

The Indonesian Water Society previously stated that Jakarta was slowly sinking, warning that North Jakarta will be completely submerged within 50 years when the sea would reach Jl. Hayam Wuruk in Central Jakarta, around 5 kilometers inland.

Safwan criticized the Jakarta administration’s decision to continue development plans in North Jakarta despite expert suggestions to put the plans on hold pending a reassessment to better cope with deteriorating environmental conditions.

If the administration wanted to continue its development plans in North Jakarta, he urged officials to start making plans to prevent the city from sinking, Safwan said.

“The administration can build strong dikes following the Dutch example, where their country’s landscape and features are similar to Jakarta,” he said, adding that about 40 percent of the area in Jakarta was below sea level. (rch)

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President: Relocating the capital city an option

Moving Indonesia's Capital ‘No Help to Jakarta’

Jakarta Globe, Faisal Maliki Baskoro | September 20, 2010

Jakarta. Not so fast. Any recent dreams of cruising along Jakarta boulevards swept clear by a relocation of the capital to Kalimantan will likely continue to be just that: dreams.

Moving Indonesia's capital from Jakarta would
have little impact on the city, experts say.

International experts in urban planning and policy say moving Indonesia’s capital from Jakarta would have little to no effect on the overcrowding and crushing traffic endured by its residents.

The idea has gained ground in recent weeks, and the government announced last month that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was seriously considering a plan to relocate the capital, with Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan and Jonggol in West Java as the two most likely sites. Officials said Yudhoyono’s plan, also floated by presidents Sukarno and Suharto, was motivated partly by a desire to even the disparity in the country’s regional development.

For many Jakartans, though, the big boon would be a freeing up of the crippling traffic, which moves at an excruciating eight kilometers per hour, on average, costing at least $1.4 billion a year in lost productivity. And it will only get worse. The Jakarta city administration has predicted total gridlock by 2012 without drastic action, as the population grows and car sales soar by about 15 percent annually.

But Kenneth Corey, a professor of urban and regional planning at Michigan State University, says moving the capital would be no help.

“I know of no evidence that documents conclusively that traffic congestion is reduced by relocating all or some capital functions out of a national capital,” Corey said. He conducted an extensive study of capital relocations and their implications for South Korea’s now-abandoned plan to totally relocate its capital.

Wendell Cox, an expert on urban policy and transportation issues with the consultancy Demographia, said residents of Greater Jakarta could look forward to ever-worsening gridlock regardless of where the capital was moved. Cox noted that Jakarta, as the nation’s commercial hub, would continue to experience explosive population growth in the coming decades, as well as surging sales of automobiles.

Cox said relocating Brazil’s capital from Rio de Janeiro, Pakistan’s from Karachi and Nigeria’s from Lagos did not prevent those cities from extending their sprawl. He said Rio’s population had tripled since the capital was moved to Brasilia in 1960, while that of Lagos, which ceded capital status to Abuja in 1991, is expected to grow to 15 million by 2025 from an estimated nine million now.

He said the population of Greater Jakarta, or Jabodetabek, which he estimated at 26 million people now, would grow to nearly 40 million by 2050, regardless of whether the capital was moved.

“Based upon the experiences of Abuja, Islamabad and Brasilia, I would be surprised if a new remote capital would reduce Jakarta’s future population by more than two million, and it could be substantially less than that. A megacity of 38 million would be just as unmanageable as one of 40 million,” he said. He estimated that the 40 million mark would be reached by 2030.

Cox stressed that ultimately, while relocating the capital might make Jakarta marginally less crowded and would have other benefits, the city was still destined to suffer gridlock without a massive investment in infrastructure.

“If a principal objective of the capital move is to reduce traffic congestion, then it would be far better to spend the money on the infrastructure needed to do that rather than taking the approach of moving the capital to reduce traffic congestion,” he said.

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Makassar’s Sultan Hasanuddin Airport ‘Embarrassed’ by Flooding Incident

Jakarta Globe, Rahmat & Putri Prameshwari | September 19, 2010

Makassar. Indonesia’s already much-derided airport network received another blow over theweekend as the international airport in Makassar found itself underwater .

Departuredrop off - Sultan Hasanuddin International
Airport

Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport, the main gateway to the eastern half of the country and one of five airports being prepared for inclusion in the Asean OpenSkies scheme, was flooded in up to half a meter of water until Saturday following heavy rains on Friday.

Airport operator Angkasa Pura I, which manages airports in Indonesia’s east, said a 2.5 kilometer storm drain that was supposed to carry rainwater away overflowed after particularly heavy rain.

The result was ankle-deep flooding in three of the airport’s waiting rooms, as wellas in the international departure lounge.

The airport’sapron was also flooded in up to 30 centimeters of water, while the airport’s basement bore the brunt of the inundation with 50 centimeters of water.

Purwanto,the general manager for Angkasa Pura I’s Makassar office, said the storm drain could not cope with the heavy rain. “The airport wasn’t designed to take a huge amount of water,” he said. “We have four water pumps, but we couldn’t use anyof them because the water volume was too high.”

Officials declined to state how many flights were affected.

The flooding also forced airport authorities to turn off the electricity to several sections of the terminal building, adding to passengers’ inconvenience.

Hakamuddin Jamal, an Angkasa Pura I commissioner present at the airport at the time, acknowledged that the incident “embarrassed” them.

“This isone of Indonesia’s biggest and most luxurious airports,” he said.

The airport said it would be adding more storm drains next month as well as repairing the roof and the network of drains running beneath the terminal in abid to prevent more flooding.

The flooding happened a day after the country’s main gateway, the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, suffered a second blackout in as many months.

However,Tri Sunoko, director of Angkasa Pura II, which manages airports in the western part of Indonesia, said that Friday’s two-minute blackout did not disrupt flights or passenger services .

“Reports that up to 112 flights were delayed are not true,” Angkasa Pura II corporate secretary Harry Cahyono said.

Flood inundates hundreds of houses, farming areas in Tulungagung

Antara News, Sunday, September 19, 2010 18:04 WIB

Tulungagung, East Java (ANTARA News) - A flood inundated hundreds of houses at Bolorejo village, Kauman sub district, Sunday, at a height of up to one`s thigh.

The flood occurred at around 2 am local time following incessant heavy rains since Saturday (18/9), which triggered Song river to overflow.

The flood did not claim any live but damaged a number of properties belonging to local residents.

"We did not have a chance to save our belongings in our houses because the flood came when we were sleeping," Sunarti, a resident of Bolorejo village, said.

Hectares of farming areas were also affected by the flood, which inflicted material losses worth more than Rp100 million. Flood always hits Bolorejo village every year.

Meanwhile, the collapse of two main bridges in Margomulyo village, Watulimo sub-district, Trenggalek District, East Java Province, had isolated the lives of thousands of villagers.

About 2,000 residents of Margomulyo and Sawahan villages could not go anywhere due to the broken bridges, which connected their places with neighboring villages.

The bridges crashed by flash floods recently were the main accesses of the local residents to neighboring villages in Watulimo sub-district.

There were no other way to go to the neighboring villages, because places were surrounded by Prigi River and hilly areas, he said.

Due to heavy rains, flash floods had submerged at least four villages near the Prigi beach in Watulimo sub-district, Trenggalek district, East Java.

Among the flood-hit villages were Margomulyo, Tasikmadu, Karanggandu, and Prigi.

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Indonesian President Orders Telkom Bosses to Get Off Their Backsides and Do Their Jobs

Jakarta Globe, September 17, 2010

Jakarta. An angry President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered his officials to roast the management of state-owned Telekomunikasi Selular Indonesia after he experienced technical difficulties with teleconference service during a public relations exercise.

Yudhoyono, at a Idul Fitri police post in Cikampek, West Java, was discussing traffic flows with Central Java Police Chief Insp. Gen. Edward Aritonang with the media in tow when Edward’s image froze on the screen.

“It was okay before, why is it like that now?” the president asked. “Are there any Telkomsel officials here?”

Yudhoyono then asked a Telkomsel official whether the company’s president director ever checked on such network failures.

When the unfortunate official replied “No,” Yudhoyono ordered Cabinet Secretary Dipo Alam to send a message to the president directors of Telkomsel, Indonesia’s leading cellular provider, and its parent company, Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom), to ensure that all systems within their control functioned properly.

“Please tell them, ‘don’t just sit behind their desks. Make sure that the systems function. Now,’” the president said.

Antara/JG

Main road collapses in North Jakarta

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Thu, 09/16/2010 3:10 PM

Slip road? Residents look at a collapsed section of Jl. RE Martadinata in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, on Thursday. Antara/Ujang Zaelani

A section of Jl. R.E. Martadinata in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, more than 100 meters long subsided 7 meters early on Thursday morning, hampering motorists from the Ancol area getting to Tanjung Priok Port.

To avoid congestion, Jakarta Police deployed more officers to reroute motorists onto alternative roads, police chief Insp. Gen. Timur Pradopo said during his visit to the collapsed road.

“The police and officials from the Public Works Ministry will set up a team to investigate the cause of the incident,” he added.

Meanwhile, motorcycles and cars are being allowed to travel on an unimpaired section of the road from Tanjung Priok to the Ancol area, said Timur.

State-run road contractor PT Binamarga District II director Winarno said the sloping ground might have caused the road to collapse.

River water, from a dredging project in the nearby Jabat River, had softened the soil on which the road was built, he added.

Divers searching for a reported victim of the road collapse in Jakarta on Friday. They found no trace of a body. (JG Photo/Safir Makki)

Related Article:

Collapsed Road Was ‘Yet Another Botched Project’