Deadly West Sumatra floods trigger state of emergency

The latest disaster highlights the effect of illegal development across a region now perennially plagued by catastrophic flooding.

A man guides a truck along an erosion-damaged road in West Sumatra. Picture: AFP

Indonesia’s west Sumatra province has declared a state of emergency as floods and landslides claimed at least 23 lives, destroyed thousands of homes and cut off towns and villages that emergency workers were still attempting to reach on Tuesday.

Consistently heavy rain since Thursday, exacerbated by illegal development and poor drainage systems, are believed to have triggered the latest disaster, which has affected an estimated 80,000 people across 12 regencies and so far caused tens of millions of dollars in damages.

The National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) said search-and-rescue teams were still working to locate at least six more people feared swept away in fast-flowing flood waters, but several regions were still inaccessible as a result of landslides that had cut off road access. “We will continue the search until the seventh day,” Padang search-and-rescue chief Abdul Malik said. “Our main challenge is access to the Langgai village, which is still very difficult due to many landslides.”

Work on the region’s main coastal north-south highway from Padang to Painan was expected to take up to a fortnight to complete, prompting a frustrated outburst from the BNPB.

Villagers clean up at Pesisir Selatan at the weekend. Picture: AFP

BNPB chief Suharyanto urged local governments to accelerate emergency response efforts and to quickly report damaged infrastructure so repairs could be carried out immediately after the emergency response period.

“No more reports of isolated residents without basic needs being met. If there are still roads cut off, every possible means should be utilised,” he told a meeting of provincial authorities. “If necessary, the military and police should swim through floods with backpacks to provide assistance.”

West Sumatra Governor Mahyeldi said his administration had declared a state of emergency to focus local efforts on delivering aid to disaster-affected communities via temporary shelters and public kitchens. But, he added, the latest floods had highlighted a history of policy and planning failures in a region where illegal and unplanned developments were rife, and new infrastructure development did not always adhere to spatial planning rules.

Mr Mahyeldi said landslides were also occurring as a result of deforestation, while river retaining walls had been damaged in some areas by unregulated riverbank housing, which would be removed in coming weeks.

Lieutenant General Suharyanto said the BNPB was facing simultaneous disasters on Sumatra island alone, with floods in the west and forest fires in the parched east, in Riau province.

“This is the anomaly of our country. In West Sumatra, we face earthquakes, eruptions, floods, and landslides every year, but in the neighbouring province, forest and land fires occur,” he said, adding the government was concerned about dwindling water supplies for agriculture.