I hope it will not be a yearly ritual where parts of the cities are flooded for days. But this year, the city of Jakarta is again flooded and fortunately in some areas, it only lasted for a day or two. And the water level was not as high as last year, at least this is the case for the north region of Jakarta. Though in some areas in the east, it went as high as 7metres... that's right, 7metres.
Some wondered the reason of this ritual and how to avoid it in the future. Some didn't bother to think that far and just assumed it was the fault governor of Jakarta and his team and it is, has been and will always be their responsibility to keep the citizens of Jakarta away from the flood. Some, well... don't seem to care much.
Well, whatever category you may fall into, I think it is safe to assume that such "disaster" does not and cannot be blamed to a person or a group of people. Instead it is everyone's responsibility to ensure such disaster don't ever come back to haunt us year after year.
Our governor can only do so much to fix dams, drainage system etc but whether the drains are clogged or not, depends on us. As we all know, floods are usually caused by a drainage system that is clogged and usually this clogging is caused by items that should not be there in the first place ie rubbish. It was horrifying to see the amount of rubbish that can be found in our sewage/drainage system.
We, the citizen of Jakarta, should start to realize that it is now the time to start disposing rubbish in an appropriate place. Before we can start to do that, we should not hope to avoid disaster such as flood. Before we start to care for this city, we should expect a visit by the flood every year.
It all starts with "I". Not I have the rights to a flood free city or I have the rights to throw rubbish wherever I wish, but I have the responsibility to make this a flood free city or I have the responsibility to keep this city clean.
Wake up the people of Jakarta!
