Much of the Indonesian capital is under waist-high water, after several days of unusually heavy monsoon rains caused floods that forced thousands to seek shelter.<\/p>\n
Rising flood waters in Jakarta forced many government offices and businesses to close Thursday. Many roads were unpassable in the low-lying, flood-prone city of 14 million.<\/p>\n
Forecasters warn the rain could get worse in the coming days, adding to what has been one of the city’s heaviest downpours in years.<\/p>\n
Authorities said water levels at key floodgates in the city already were dangerously high, and they warned the floods could spread to other areas.<\/p>\n
At least four people have been killed and 20,000 people have been evacuated from the capital and its suburbs, where floods are not unusual during the rainy season.<\/p>\n
But Ari Fadli, a student in the capital, says the flooding is worse than usual.<\/p>\n
“This time the floods are bigger than previous ones. I think we should have a big drainage tunnel like in other countries, so it would not flood again like this,” Ari says.<\/p>\n
Jim Della-Giacoma, who also lives in Jakarta, tells VOA it was not safe enough for the employees at his non-governmental organization, the International Crisis Group, to go to work.<\/p>\n
“The flooding is quite extensive across the city,” says Della-Giacoma. “The first thing that I did this morning when I saw how bad it was when I dropped the kids off at school was to go back home and do not even try to get to the office. And I told everybody to stay at home.”<\/p>\n
Seasonal downpours cause dozens of landslides and flash floods each year in Indonesia, a vast chain of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At least four people have been killed and 20,000 people have been evacuated from the capital and its suburbs, where floods are not unusual during the rainy season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n