Flooding in Indonesia: April 2021

Flooding in Indonesia has

caused landslides and 41
deaths On the 4 of April torrential
th

rain has caused landslides and flash

flooding. At least 41 people have died
and lots of people are still missing. Mud
slid down the hills onto people’s houses
on Adonara Island. Because the mud
slides happened just after midnight,
Indonesia’s seasonal rain causes landslides and floods every most people were in bed and not aware
year. of the danger. Rescuers recovered 35
Indonesia is a chain of 17,000 different islands where millions of
bodies from the village of people who
people live in the mountains. The countries disaster agency has had died from the mud slides.
estimated that nearly half of the countries population (about Another 6 people died from being
125 million people) live in parts of the country which are at risk
swept away by the severe flooding.
of landslides.
40 houses were destroyed and
Indonesia is in Southeast Asia. The wet season starts in October
and lasts until April. Even though the rainfall is high, it only lasts
hundreds of people had to leave their
for an hour or two each time. homes which were submerged or
carried away by the floodwater. 13
Like other countries in the world, Indonesia is being affected by rivers in the area were overflowing and
global warming. Sometimes the wind pushes storms from
256 schools were closed due to the
Taiwan, China, The Philippines or Australia to Indonesia and
floods either because they had been
floods entire regions. This rarely happened in the past.
affected by the flood water or because
Indonesia often declares a state of emergency during the they were being used as shelters for
monsoon season due to flooding. Many parts of the islands are people who had lost their homes.
below sea level and flooding can become worse if the rain
happens at the same time as high tides. The population is The rescue attempts were made more
growing quickly and people don’t understand what causes difficult because the floors also caused
flooding which makes the dangers worse than in other areas of power cuts and the mud slides blocked
the world. There is also a risk that the high water levels might roads.
contaminate clean water which could lead to an outbreak of
disease.

The government is now planning new ways to prevent flooding

in the future including building a dam. They have also tweeted
that they will rebuild all the public buildings which have been
damaged with anti-flooding measures.

The country have also used cloud seeding planes to attempt to

break up the heavy rain. These are planes which release
chemicals into the air to try and modify the weather.

MY THOUGHTS

It must be frightening living in an area where flooding is so normal, and people die every year because of mud
slides. I was really shocked at the photos I saw online of villages totally destroyed and children and families who
have been left with nothing. I don’t like the idea of using chemicals to try and change the weather as this might
just cause other environmental problems like poisoning rivers. Because this happens every year, I think the
government should do more to educate and protect the people living there.