High tide floods 2007: “Signs of a sinking Jakarta”

 

 

Source: Presentation by Hongjoo Hahm and Janjaap Brinkmann (World Bank)

 

Brinkman’s statement that Jakarta might sink by 2025 was widely quoted by the media:

'The major reason for this is not climate change or whatever, but just the sinking of Jakarta,' said Mr Jan Jaap Brinkman, an engineer with Dutch consultancy Delft Hydraulics, who worked on the study. By 2025, estimates from the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change show, sea levels would have risen by only about 5cm. But Mr Brinkman said that Jakarta, which spans a plain between coast and mountains, will be between 40cm and 60cm lower than it is now. The study shows that without better defences, the sea will reach the presidential palace, which is around 5km inland, in 2025 as well as completely inundate Jakarta's historic old city.

 

What you may not have seen is their full presentation:

Download directly from World Bank’s website.

 

Two confidential reports about Lapindo mudflow were uploaded to wikileaks. Here’s an excerpt from the wikileak page:

UK geologists downplayed Lapindo's argument and concluded that the earthquake was merely coincidental. While it could have generated a new fracture system and weakened strata surrounding the Banjar-Panji 1 well, it could not have been the cause of the formation of the hydraulic fracture that created the main vent 200 m (660 ft) away from the borehole. Additionally there was no other mud volcano reported on Java after the earthquake and the main drilling site is 300 km (190 mi) away from the earthquake's epicenter. The intensity of the earthquake at the drilling site was estimated to have been only magnitude 2 on Richter scale, the same effect as of a heavy truck passing over the area.

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