Broken Embankment, Midnight Flash Floods Hit 500 People in Bandung
Source: Tempo
Date: June 2, 2021
TEMPO.CO, Bandung - Flash floods hit Panyadap Village, Solokan Jeruk District, Bandung Regency. The incident on Tuesday, June 1, 2021, near midnight, quickly submerged dozens of houses, causing residents to flee to neighbouring houses. Several buildings were also damaged and a resident was injured.
According to resident Iwan Setiawan, it was raining heavily in the village around 19.30 to 21.00 WIB. Residents who were resting were shocked by flash floods after the embankment broke at 23.10 WIB at RT 03 RW 01. "The volume of water in the Cisungalah River is very large," he said, Wednesday, June 2, 2021.
The occupants of the house trapped in the flood inside the house were evacuated by other residents. According to Iwan, all residents are safe and no one is missing. However, there was an old man who had to be taken to the hospital because he was hit by a falling wall while bringing his grandson to safety. As of Wednesday morning, the river was still inundated by runoff without embankments.
Iwan said the residents were assisted by officers from the Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD), the SAR team, volunteers, and the Bandung Regency fire department worked together to clean up the impact of the flood. In addition to mud, trees on the banks of the river such as bamboo are also carried into the settlements. "The broken embankment is repeated almost every year but the locations are different in this RW," he said.
The embankment collapsed last year, knocking down two houses. This time, said Iwan, more residents were affected by the flash flood because the area was classified as densely populated. The broken embankment was about 20 meters high and 3 meters high. Based on temporary data, more than 40 houses inhabited by around 500 people were affected by the flood.
According to Iwan, the condition of the embankments in the area is already worrying. The flow of water from upstream when it rains is often large. Before the incident, there was a plan to normalize the Cisungalah River. "Normalization must be massive because the condition of the river is narrow and shallow," he said.
However, the normalization plan was delayed because several affected residents refused since the compensation was deemed unclear. The solution, said Iwan, is for the government to temporarily strengthen the embankment from the ground into a wall to make it more stable, preventing repeated flash floods.
