Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tangerang
Fifteen-year-old Memed hurriedly strips off his clothes and jumps into a pool of murky green water. Six of his friends had plunged in earlier to play handball, the only ball game possible after the village's soccer field was inundated with a meter-high flood cause by high tides.
Since Tuesday morning, high tides from the sea north of their village have flooded Cheng kampung in Kosambi district.
It was not only the soccer field; the whole 16-hectare kampung, where about 4,000 families live, was forced to welcome the smelly, garbage-infested tidal floodwater.
To avoid getting wet during high tide, many residents, most who earn a living fishing, have moved their belongings to higher grounds.
They have grown accustomed to the situation -- the tidal floodwater visits their kampung twice a month.
Threats of diseases, diarrhea, dengue fever and skin problems common in flood-prone areas have become a minor problem for the 4,000 families. They say they are used to the afflictions.
"The big problem we have to face, besides the flood itself, is the absence of a clean water source," Sumadi, 45, a community head, said Tuesday evening.
Come rain or come shine, his family of three has had to buy at least two jerry cans of clean water each day from mobile vendors for Rp 2,000 (20 US cents) each. All residents in his neighborhood have had to do the same.
Like others in the neighborhood, his family only uses clean water for cooking, drinking and washing dishes. They do their laundry and take baths with the water available.
Abdul Azis, 36, said tidal floodwater began to inundate the area Tuesday morning at an average height of 50 centimeters.
In the afternoon, the water level rose to one meter and had not subsided until the evening. Many residents had lost patience and began moving their belongings to higher places.
He said in previous years, the kampung was only flooded by tides once a month at the most and the floods were not as high as recent ones. Since January, he said, the kampung had been flooded twice a month.
"We don't have a proper drainage system. The floodwaters have not subsided so far. If the rain pours down, the water level can increase to one-and-a-half meters or more within two hours," he said.
"We have repeatedly asked the Tangerang regency administration to help, but maybe because this village is not visible from the main road, we are yet to receive any assistance," he said.
Azis said sedimentation of the Dadap River contributed to the worsening impact of the tidal floods. The river has become shallow; it can no longer hold the tidal water, which usually comes quickly, he said.
Both Sumadi and Azis said locals had asked the administration to build an embankment along the estuary that flowed through the village so that when the tidal water arrived, it would not overflow and spill into residential areas.
Chairman of Tangerang regency council's Commission D on development issues, Kurtubi Su'ud, said he frequently urged the administration to provide the people with an adequate drainage system.
"The conditions in Dadap and many other subdistricts across the regency are proof of the regency public works agency's poor planning in setting up drainage systems," he said.
Head of the public works agency, Hermansyah, said his office was allocated Rp 120 billion in funds to repair damaged drainage systems in only six districts across the regency; Dadap district was not one of them.
"I will have to propose the administration allocate more funds to repair the canal in Dadap subdistrict," he said.
With such projects usually taking up to one year to get started, Cheng kampung residents may have to wait for years before they get their soccer field back.
Cheng kampung is only one example of dozens of other villages that regularly face such problems in Kosambi.
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