Budi Santoso Wonosari village chief said heavy rain falling in the area for several hours caused Sanenrejo river to overflow inundating 500 houses.
"A number of small villages in Wonoasri have always become flooded by Curahnongko and Sanenrejo rivers following heavy rain in the area for several hours," he said.
He said water started to enter the houses at 3 am inundating hundreds of homes in Curahlele, prompting village authorities to task the villagers to evacuate to higher and saver locations.
"The village roads have also been flooded, forcing village authorities to use available rowboats to evacuate the flood victims in Pondok Suto," he said.
Some of the villagers however he said did not want to evacuate for fear to loose and the village officials cannot force them to move to saver places.
In the meantime, Secretary of the Jember Disaster Mitigation Widi Prasetyo said he has already sent rubber dinghies to evacuate the villagers whose homes had been inundated.
"We have also borrowed rubber boats from the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) in Jember to evacuate the flood victims to higher and saver places because the rain was still falling," he said.
He said he is still registering the flood victims in Curahlele, because the evacuation of the villagers has become a priority in addition to have food assistance sent to the flood victims.
"I did not know exactly the number of inundated houses. Our priority is to send food assistance and move the flood victims to safer places," said Widi, who is also head of the National Unity and Public Protection Agency.
(SYS/H-NG/H-YH)
Editor: Suryanto
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