Vice President Jusuf Kalla has ordered quicker emergency responses to the flooding problem in the West Nusa Tenggara district of Bima.
On Wednesday, December 28, during his visit to the emergency post at the Bima mayor’s office, Vice President Jusuf Kalla ordered for speedier emergency efforts to alleviate the Bima district flooding problem.
Hundreds of thousands of residents have been affected by the massive flooding in the district of West Nusa Tenggara. The flood has started to subside, and public services are running again.
Kalla explained that urgent need for faster emergency responses to the affected areas as slower responses may prove more costly.
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Last week’s Bima flooding is estimated to have caused a staggering US$74 million (Rp 1 trillion) in financial losses with the massive damages to the region’s farmlands, homes, offices, schools, hospitals and other buildings.
The vice president also ordered for more calculated and systematic procedures to undertake so as to prevent similar destruction in the future in case such catastrophes happen again.
Kalla told reporters that the government should be ready with short-term, mid-term and long-term programmes to better handle disaster-affected residents and prevent similar incidents in the future.
The latest government count shows the floods inundated five subdistricts and their 33 villages, displacing more than 105,753 residents. The last two days have seen the decrease of evacuees from 6,900 from 8,491 across 33 shelters.
Image credit: JakartaPost
