Jakarta embarks on massive clean-up operation

Jakarta: Indonesia's capital was cleaning up yesterday after several days of torrential rain engulfed parts of the city with up to 1.5 metres of water, killing three people and displacing around 7,000, a health official said.

The rains, which also caused serious travel chaos and closed the capital's main airport for several hours, had stopped in Jakarta yesterday but some areas of the city remained under water.

"We can confirm three people were killed in West Jakarta after being washed away by the current," said Rustam Pakaya, head of the health ministry's crisis centre.

Pakaya said that 6,820 people were still in shelters across Jakarta, a city of 14 million people that is regularly hit by floods at this time of year.

Jakarta's main airport had briefly been forced to shut on Friday, after rain and fog slashed visibility to less than 300 metres, delaying more than 40 flights.

"It is back to normal, some delayed flights from yesterday have already departed," Hariyanto, an official at Soekarno-Hatta airport, said. The main airport toll road was still partly closed, he added.

Floods and landslides also hit other parts of Java Island, as well as Sulawesi Island and Sumatra Island this week, killing 12 people.