Thousands of residents have taken refuge from flooding in North Sumatra’s Labuhan Batu Utara and Langkat regencies following heavy rains that began on Wednesday.

Farmland and public facilities were also inundated. No casualties have been reported.

Rusdi Efendi, head of disaster mitigation for the Labuhan Batu Utara administration said thousands of homes had been inundated, with floodwaters reaching a meter deep.

“This is the worst flooding this year. Several high plain areas were also flooded,” Rusdi told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

As the heavy rains continued, he said, the situation would likely worsen.

In Langkat, at least 11 villages in the Besitang and Tanjung Pura districts have been flooded up to 1.5 meters deep since Thursday. A total of 2,491 families were affected, with 136 of them evacuating their homes.

Syahmada, a spokesman for the regency administration, said it had set up disaster mitigation posts.

The flooding struck two elementary schools, two mosques and four churches, among other buildings. At least 62 hectares of farmland were also inundated.

Aceh Tamiang regency in Aceh, which shares a border with Langkat, has also seen flooding. Thousands of vehicles were stuck in floodwaters on the trans-Sumatra highway in Gampong Kebun Tengah and Sungai Liput.

Traffic from Medan to Aceh and back had been cut off as of Friday afternoon. (dre)

Source:
courtesy of THE JAKARTA POST

by Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post)

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