A total of 24,436 residents of Demak District were still staying in emergency shelters due to floods that inundated their homes.
Jakarta (ANTARA) - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) instructed the Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) and the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) to check buildings that were damaged by floods in Demak, Central Java.

“The PUPR Ministry will carry out checking in the field with the BNPB,” he remarked after visiting the flood victims at Ganesa Vocational School, Demak, Central Java, on Friday, as monitored on the YouTube channel of the Presidential Secretariat.

Speaking in connection with the damaged agricultural lands, he affirmed that the Ministry of Agriculture will provide seeds to farmers whose crops were damaged by floods.

According to the president, the government is handling floods in Demak that were caused by extreme-intensity rainfall, with several measures taken, right from repairing embankments to conducting weather modification.

“Yes, the rainfall here is extreme. Rainfall could be considered extreme when it reaches 150 mm, and the rain here reaches 238 mm. It is very extreme,” Jokowi remarked.

The president further noted that the extreme intensity of rainfall caused several embankments to be breached, with varying widths of leaks.

He noted that those embankments were breached, as the water levels exceeded the river’s capacity limit.

"The embankment, the one breached by 15 meters, had been repaired by 1 a.m. earlier this morning after (the workers) toiled for four days, day and night," Jokowi stated.

Earlier, the BNPB reported that as of Thursday (March 21), a total of 24,436 residents of Demak District were still staying in emergency shelters due to floods that inundated their homes.

Those emergency shelters are spread across 16 locations in the sub-districts of Karanganyar, Karang Tengah, Gajah, Wonosalam, Sayung, and Demak.

Related news: Embankment repair, weather modification to address Demak flood: Jokowi
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Translator: Benardy Ferdiansyah, Raka Adji
Editor: Arie Novarina
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