Late afternoon of the 29/2/2016, a strong tropical monsoon thunderstorm moved across large portions of Jakarta city.
The city lacks a suitable road network to handle the traffic loads and street drainage that might be seen in any typical Australian town or city simply does not exist. As such, it does not take much rain to cause flooding issues and many areas across northern Jakarta is susceptible to serious flooding each year during the monsoon season. Such flooding can disrupt the lives of large numbers of people.
On the 27 and 28 February heavy monsoon showers and storms were a feature for the day. However on the afternoon of the 29/2/2016, a serious monsoon rainstorm was all it needed and the result was local flooding. I had the opportunity to experience this event and during the downpour, I took my camera out onto the local streets to take photos of poor street drainage and roads being inundated with water.
The heavy rain cleared the local streets with traffic and motor scooters although traffic returned once the rain eased and flood waters had subsided.
With a lack of drainage, water was seen cascading across roadways with excess water ponding across streets. Kerbing and guttering does not exist in any proper form and as such, flood waters are compounded within the local street network.
Many locals who spend their daytime lives with small struggling food stall businesses on the edges of roads simply took shelter and closed up shop during the downpour.
The rain was so heavy that skyscrapers only 1 km to the south of where I was staying could not be seen.
While this was only one such event that was captured, such scenes is a common occurrence annually across Jakarta and such flooding will continue until the road network is rebuilt which is unlikely to occur any time soon.
All the images of the rain and flooding were taken around Setiabudi (Jakarta).