Jakarta Governor, Pramono Anung visited the Cakung Lama River, Begog River segment in Semper Timur, North Jakarta, Friday (1/23).

Following the inspection, Pramono outlined a number of strategic steps to address flooding in several areas of Jakarta due to extreme weather.

Pramono said that the main cause of flooding in North Jakarta, especially in the Kelapa Gading, Sukapura, Cilincing, and Pegangsaan Dua areas, is the narrowing of the river flow or bottleneck in the Cakung Lama River.

"This bottleneck caused several areas to flood, including Kelapa Gading, Sukapura, Cilincing, Pegangsaan Dua, and so on," he said.

Therefore, the Governor has instructed the Head of the Water Resources Agency to immediately normalize approximately two kilometers of the Cakung Lama River. This normalization effort is one of the Jakarta Provincial Government's priority programs to address flooding.

According to Pramono, some local residents have previously resisted normalization. However, due to the ongoing flooding, they have now expressed their support for this effort.

Pramono stated that in several areas, the Cakung Lama River is now only two meters wide, down from its original width of 15 to 20 meters. Therefore, normalization is necessary to allow the river to accommodate the water flow during heavy rainfall.

"Next week we will have a meeting to carry out normalization on this river so that Kelapa Gading and so on will not be impacted like now," he added.

Pramono also stated that the long duration and high rainfall over the past few days have led to increased flooding in several areas. To address this, the Jakarta Provincial Government is committed to continuously adding flood control infrastructure, such as pumps, as well as normalizing the Cakung Lama, Krukut, and Ciliwung rivers.

"Those three are main focus of Jakarta Provincial Government," he stated.