The city of Jakarta. (Image via Sky News)

Jokowi: Jakarta Needs Giant Wall Sea

The President of Indonesia Joko Widodo (Jokowi) revealed to the Associated Press about the urgency of a new big project. Jokowi said the project is Jakarta’s giant wall sea that he wants it to be done faster. He also revealed that the purpose of having giant wall sea is to prevent Jakarta from shrinking.

An expert from ITB (Bandung Technology Institute), Heri Andreas, stated on Saturday July 27, that the surface of Jakarta is keep shrinking right now. If nothing is done to stop it, the capital city of Indonesia is predicted to be completely shrunk by 2050. The shrinking is mainly caused by the excessive ground water extraction as well as the amount of buildings. These ‘problematic’ buildings are mostly the tall buildings, which press down the marshy land.

Although experts have only been talking about the issue now, the problem has been occurred since decades ago. Starting from years ago, the building development in Indonesia is uncontrolled. Thus, that is why the city is shrinking. This issue is predicted to be one of the most crucial problems in the future decades.

Other than talking about the shrinking Jakarta, Jokowi also talked about other issues such as tragic jams and polluted city. Due to these problems, the government (as previously reported) has decided to move the capital city to Kalimantan or Borneo. However, there are things that need to be prepared and done first, so Jokowi couldn’t make sure about the time of moving Indonesia’s capital city.

Source: https://www.voaindonesia.com/a/jokowi-jakarta-perlu-dinding-laut-raksasa-segera/5018356.html