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JAKARTA - Indonesian rescuers, police and troops in inflatable boats have helped evacuate Jakarta residents stranded in severe floods that have killed 29, 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 the adjoining towns of 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 have predicted the heavy rain will 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 drinking water and electricity.
Clean water supplies have been cut to about 500,000 people due to the floods which have put treatment plants out of action, 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 29 dead while health ministry officials said they had no report of the new victims to change their figures of 18 killed and two 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.
Members of the Indonesian Red Cross and other volunteers were delivering food to thousands of people camped out on roadsides or in public buildings and mosques turned into temporary shelters.
The Indonesian Red Cross said it was supplying water to some 30,000 people in one North Jakarta ward alone. Australia and the United States said they had provided a total of more than 200,000 dollars for emergency food and other supplies for flood victims.
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 sheltering 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 crouched 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. Most schools remained closed.
"We are forced to give the school the day off because many students and teachers' houses were affected by floods," elementary school headmaster M. Thoyib told the state Antara news agency.
Many train services were cancelled or delayed and meteorologists warned that the rainy weather would continue until at least the end of February.
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."
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/ir
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