Kalimantan III BWS anticipating disasters ahead of rainy season

Banjarmasin, S Kalimatan (ANTARA) - The Kalimantan III Banjarmasin Center for River Basin (BWS) held a disaster preparedness roll call to deal with extreme rainy, especially potential of floodings, because of unpredictable weather, in South Kalimantan.

"When heavy rain falls there is a potential of floods and landslides," said Head of BWS III I Putu Eddy Purna Wijaya in Banjarmasin, Friday.

Eddy said that currently the weather could change quickly in extreme ways, causing the potential disasters to occur in South Kalimantan.

The preparedness roll call held by BWS Kalimantan III was to anticipate disasters. Some 69 of its personnel force, strutural officials, the district and city level of Regional Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) and PUPR, as well as River-care Community (Melingai) were attended.

Floods and landslides disasters have hit Sumatra, he said, but have not occurred yet in South Kalimantan. .

“In fact, rainfall is getting high in Central and West Kalimantan,” said Eddy.

Eddy emphasized the need for cross-sectoral task force synergy as it was done during the last dry season and produced good work and such pattern can be applied to deal with rainy season.

Based on the reports, South Kalimantan region was hit by a number of floods during 2023, namely Balangan six times, Banjar District (eight times), Banjarbaru City (twice), Banjarmasin (twice), Barito Kuala (once), HSS (four times), HST (five times), HSU (five times), Kotabaru (once), Tabalong (three times), Tanah Laut (once), and Tapin (once).

"Looking at the data the threat of flood disaster in South Kalimantan is quite large,” Eddy pointed out.

He said that the aim of the ceremony was to prepare personnel, especially in the Kalimantan III BWS, in anticipating disasters in the region.

The agency readies 2.316 units of gabions, 5,065 units of standard geobags, 1,940 units of geobags, and 100 units of sandbags.

Then BWS prepared excavators, mini and long amphibious excavators, dumptruk, crane truck, selfloaders, pump cars, alkon pumps, boat engine, inflatable boats, forklifts, lighting towers, and geotextile sewing machines.