JAKARTA, Indonesia, March 31 (NNN-ANTARA) – Jayapura district of Indonesia’s eastern Papua province, entered a three-month transitional emergency period for recovery on Saturday, after flash floods and landslides damaged 2,287 houses, the country’s disaster agency official said.
The new status heading to recovery, aims to pave access to financing and logistics, moving personnel, use of equipment and others during the emergency relief work, said spokesman of national disaster management agency, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.
“A coordinating meeting decided to end the emergency status and shift it to a transitional emergency status, towards recovery for a three-month period,” he said.
The new status will end on June 27, and during the period, all the activities in the emergency status will continue except search for missing people, said Sutopo.
A 14-day emergency status was put in place after the disaster struck the district on March 16.
The catastrophe left 112 people dead and 961 others injured, with 153 having serious wounds, said Sutopo.
The number of damaged houses climbed significantly from the agency’s report on March 23 of 253 units.
Still, the number of evacuees ratcheted down significantly to 4,763 from a peak of 11,556 on March 23.
The disaster also damaged 59 school buildings, five bridges, two churches, three office buildings, one market and one health clinic, he said.
Flash floods often hit the remote Papua province, but those on March 16 was among the worst. Deforestation at the upstream area of a river was blamed as one that triggers of the catastrophe, according to the agency.
Indonesian environment ministry plans to conduct reclamation and reforestation at the areas, to prevent such disasters from happening again in the future.– NNN-ANTARA
