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Out-of-Season Rains to continue into August: Floods and Draught


Monday July 03, 2006

During the past weeks, saw extreme weather, both extreme rains as extreme drought. Floods with raging rivers spilling over banks, causing erosion and carrying homes and belongings as well as waist-deep floods in cities, are reported in South Sulawesi, Gorontalo and Bolaang Mongondow, all on the island of Sulawesi; also in the provinces of East and South Kalimantan, in the Moluccas and lately also on the island of Lombok.

 

 

On the other hand, rice paddies in Central Java and parts of East Java are reported to be cracking dry, as rains have not fallen here for weeks, threatening rice harvests.

 

 

 The widespread damages to human lives, villages and towns caused by the raging rivers are blamed on illegal logging on the upper reaches of the mountains, as in Central Kalimantan, South Sulawesi and Bolaang Mongondow, as well as on the conversion of forests into plantations by the local population, since soft plants such as tea, cocoa or palm oil, can not not hold the soil together and have now caused extreme flooding and landslides.  

 

 

The Weather Bureau, however, has evidence that recent rains have been unusually heavy and further forecasts that the out-of season downpours will drench the islands of Kalimantan , Sulawesi , the Moluccas , Papua, and parts of the East Nusatenggara islands well into August. Usually the dry season in lasts between May into October.

 

 

And, as rain clouds are pulled towards the central and eastern parts of the Archipelago, it appears that Java is being left out and, therefore, suffers from dryness, which if lasting longer will develop into a drought. Jakarta today is also unusually hot and humid.