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JAKARTA : Indonesian rescuers, police and troops in inflatable boats on Monday helped evacuate Jakarta residents stranded in severe floods that have killed 20, as the number left homeless approached 350,000.
Tens of thousands of houses have been inundated after rivers and canals which criss-cross Jakarta burst their banks following days of torrential downpours in the city and nearby Tangerang and Bekasi.
Health ministry officials put the number of displaced at nearly 340,000.
The floods are the worst to hit Jakarta since 2002, when 40 people were killed, and meteorologists predicted the heavy rain would continue.
"The focus today (Monday) remains the evacuation of people from flooded areas in Jakarta, Tangerang and Bekasi," said Mursid, an officer in charge at the National Disaster Mitigation Coordinating Centre.
Many residents have escaped their flooded homes on makeshift rafts or by wading through the waist-high muddy and polluted waters rather than wait for help to arrive.
Others remained trapped on the roofs of their houses or were refusing to leave, preferring to stay with their relatives or to guard their belongings despite the lack of water and electricity.
Clean water supplies have been cut to about 500,000 people due to the floods which have inundated treatment plants, the Kompas daily said, quoting the city's two water companies.
Jakarta governor Sutiyoso appealed to residents to leave their flooded homes for their own safety and to ease the distribution of relief supplies.
"Do not hesitate to leave areas which we deem as being on top alert and which urgently have to be evacuated," he told ElShinta radio.
"If you refuse to be evacuated, it will only endanger yourself and it is also very difficult to push relief door-to-door."
Police reported 20 dead while health ministry officials said 18 were killed and two others were missing.
Television stations showed footage of inundated areas around the capital, mainly along the Ciliwung, Pesangrahan and Krukut rivers, with people being evacuated from their roofs or the second floors of their homes.
Helicopters dropped supplies to people stranded in the north of the city.
Members of the Indonesian Red Cross and other volunteers were delivering food to thousands of people stranded in their flooded homes, sheltering on roadsides or in public buildings and mosques turned into temporary shelters.
Wealthier residents of the capital headed for the luxury hotels, with queues seen at the check-in desk of the Hotel Borobudur on Sunday, while poorer people sought refuge wherever they could, even in graveyards.
Hundreds of people were camped out in the Karet cemetery in the centre of town, The Jakarta Post reported.
"This is the safest place during the regular five-year floods," Barbera Pohan told the paper as she and her children sheltered under makeshift tents.
The floods have forced the closures of several main roads across Jakarta, while at least two hospitals had to move patients to upper floors.
Many train services were cancelled or delayed.
Meteorologists warned that the rain was not over.
"This weather pattern will continue until at least the end of February," said Edison Gurning of the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency.
Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar has blamed the floods on excessive construction on natural drainage areas but city governor Sutiyoso said it was a "cyclical natural phenomenon."
Witoelar said many developers had not paid enough attention to the ecological impact of their construction projects.
Old Batavia, the former colonial port under the Dutch from where Jakarta has expanded, was built on marshland and some areas of the capital are below sea level. - AFP/ch
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