Fauzi Calls Inspections for All 26 Dams in The Capital

The Jakarta Globe, Arientha Primanita, March 28, 2009

Situ Gintung dam burst its banks near Jakarta, sending waves of muddy water laden with debris crashing into a suburb of the Indonesian capital. (BBC)

The governor of Jakarta said on Friday that following the Situ Gintung disaster he had ordered an inspection of all dams in Jakarta.

“I have ordered the Public Works Agency to check and recheck the dams and all flood mitigation facilities and infrastructure in Jakarta,” Fauzi Bowo said.

“The incident in Situ Gintung was probably due to a lack of routine inspections,” he said.

Fauzi said that he sent his condolences to families of victims and that he regretted the disaster in the Cirendeu area of Tangerang, west of Jakarta.

He said the capital had set up shelters at Muhammadiyah University Jakarta and Ahmad Dahlan University in Ciputat, Banten Province, to accommodate people whose houses had been swept away or flooded by the burst dam.

Public health worker Effendy Anas said that in addition to providing medical aid the city sent six ambulances to help evacuate victims to Fatmawati Hospital in South Jakarta.

Budi Widiantoro, head of Jakarta’s Public Works Agency, said he had received the new instructions to check embankments in Jakarta and would take preventive steps if any weaknesses in structural integrity were found.

Budi said that while the Situ Gintung dam is in Banten Province, on the outskirts of Jakarta, it holds special significance for Indonesia’s largest city.

“It has the potential to hold back water to keep Jakarta from flooding,” he said, “but it can cause floods in Jakarta if it is overrun, as is happening now.”

He said the dam is directly linked to the Pesanggrahan River that runs through the Cirendeu area on its way to Jakarta areas like Tanah Kusir, Ulujami and Cipulir.

Fahrurozi, head of the water resources division of the Public Works Agency, said that embankment berms in Jakarta were in relatively in good condition. Of 26 dams in Jakarta, he said, six had completed berms, including Situ Babakan, Mangga Bolong and Situ Rawa Dongkel.

Fahrurozi said that at each dam there are officials who monitor water levels and infrastructural integrity.

“If they find something is wrong, they should report it to the agency as soon as possible to prevent breaches from happening,” Fahrurozi said.

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Thai Police Misreport Finding U.K. Tourist’s Remains in Sea

Bloomberg, Suttinee Yuvejwattana and Daniel Ten Kate

March 27 (Bloomberg) -- Thai police said they received a false report that the body of a U.K. tourist murdered with a hammer three days ago was found in the Andaman Sea near an island where he and his wife had stopped during a boating trip.

“We haven’t found the body yet,” Virat Onsong, a district police chief in Satun province, which borders Malaysia about 970 kilometers (603 miles) south of Bangkok, said by telephone today. Hundreds of police, navy and fishing boats are still searching for the remains of Malcolm Robertson, he said.

Earlier today Police Colonel Woradee Karawanan said the remains of Richardson, 64, were found near Koh Dong, an island in Satun province, where the couple had stopped on a trip through Southeast Asia. The report turned out to be incorrect, he said later.

The murder, which occurred as Robertson’s wife Linda was tied up, has attracted attention from the U.K. press. Linda Robertson survived the attack by the three Myanmar workers, who were caught by police and confessed shortly after they fled the couple’s boat in a dinghy with computers and mobile phones.

The three attackers, who were in search of food at the time, were charged with burglary today, Virat said. They can’t be charged with murder unless a body is found, he added.

“It was such a bizarre situation because it was like the three boys were having a picnic,” Linda Robertson told the British Broadcasting Corp. in a video posted on its Web site.

The three suspects in the case were “water jumpers” who quit their jobs on a fishing boat by jumping into the sea and fleeing to the island, Woradee said. They were in search of food when they approached the couple’s yacht, he added.

“They are not pirates, they were starving,” Woradee said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Suttinee Yuvejwattana in Bangkok at suttinee1@bloomberg.net, Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok at dtenkate@bloomberg.net

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Indonesians missing in ship-collision in Japanese waters

The Jakarta Post  |  Tue, 03/10/2009 6:25 PM 

 

Nine Indonesian sailors have gone missing after a South Korean-registered vessel collided with a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship in rough seas in Japanese territorial waters early Tuesday, a foreign ministry official said as quoted by Antara news agency.

 

The collision occurred between the South Korean-registered Orchid Pia and  the Panamanian-flagged cargo vessel  Cygnus Ace off Izu Oshima Island, about 120 km south of Tokyo, Teguh Wardoyo, the foreign affairs ministry's director for protection of Indonesian citizens and business entities, said here Tuesday.

 

"The Indonesian embassy in Tokyo has contacted Japan's Coast Guard via telephone and received information that nine Indonesian crew members have not been found until now," Wardoyo said.

 

Search efforts were still going on, he added.

 

AFP reported that Japanese rescue vessels and aircraft are scouring the sea looking for 16 sailors missing after a collision which coast guard officials say probably sank a South Korean freighter.

 

Seven South Korean and nine Indonesian sailors on board the Orchid Pia are missing, Japan's Coast Guard said.

 

"We believe the ship probably sank," a coast guard official said.

 

“There is nothing we can see around the waters. We found an empty raft. We are also seeing some life jackets on the water surface. But we are yet to find any parts of the vessel."

 

The accident happened at night and amid low visibility as rains and strong winds battered the ships, the coast guard said.

 

The Cygnus Ace - a 10,833-tonne automobile carrier with 19 crew aboard, including two Indonesian sailors, - immediately reported the accident to the coast guard and said the South Korean ship had disappeared off its radar.

 

The 4,255-tonne Orchid Pia failed to respond to radio signals and the coast guard launched five patrol vessels and three aircraft to search for the vessel and its crew, the official said.

 

The Orchid Pia, carrying 5,051 tonnes of steel coils, was traveling from the port of Kashima in eastern Japan to South Korea.

 

The Cygnus Ace suffered some damage to its bow, aerial footage on Japanese television showed, but was able to navigate.

 

There were no reports that any of the crew - 14 Thai, three Myanmar and two Indonesian nationals - were injured on the Cygnus Ace, which was expected to arrive at Yokohama port later Tuesday.

Teams may extend search for Thousand Island victims

The Jakarta Post,  Jakarta  |  Mon, 03/09/2009 6:15 pm

 

The Tanjung Priok Search and Rescue (SAR) office says it may extend a search for seven missing victims of a collision between cargo ship KM Rimba 3 and a tugboat, Harapan Indah 7, in the Thousand Islands off Jakarta on Thursday.

 

The office would propose to the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) to continue the search, despite a seven-day limit, Tanjung Priok administration chief Bobby R. Mamahit told tempointeraktif.com on Monday.

 

“We will possibly continue the search if the weather is fine,” Bobby said.

 

The team had focused its search on the bottom deck of a cargo ship, and expects to find the remains of the other seven missing crew members within three days, he said.

 

Thus far, the team has found the remains of six of 13 missing cargo boat crew members who had been on their way to Medan at the time of the collision. Police have questioned the cargo boat’s crew of five. (ewd)

  

Cargo ship wreckage found in Thousand Island collision

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Thu, 03/05/2009 10:32 PM  

Military ship KRI Viper found Thursday evening the wreckage of cargo ship KM Rimba Simbara 3 along with the body of a victim that died as the ship collided with Harapan Indah tugboat in the waters off of the eastern part of Damar Island. 

According to tempointeraktif.com, the ship discovered the remains of the cargo boat after receiving information from fisherman boat Sri Reok. 

Both KRI Viper and Sri Reok then moved in to the location of collision and found the dead body of a 50-year old man in the cargo ship. 

The Rimba III cargo ship was carrying cement from Tanjung Priok seaport bound for Kalimantan when it collided with Harapan Indah VII tugboat travelling from Lampung to Marunda in North Jakarta, near Damar Island at around 3:00 a.m. 

Fourteen people were reportedly missing due to the accident. (ewd)