After String of Disasters, Indonesians Ask: Why Us?

Too many shopping malls in the city. Too many squatters on the riverbanks. Too many villas on the southern hillsides. Or a curse hovering over the president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Filthy water still fills much of the city a week after the start of the worst flood in decades, draining slowly away during dry spells, then topped up again by new rain storms. Officials say 80 people have now died, mostly by drowning and electrocution.

And along with the misery of homelessness, power failures and traffic jams, the city is troubled by a babble of theories, recriminations and superstitious whispers about why Indonesia is plagued by natural disasters.

Over the past two years, Indonesia has suffered an encyclopedia of troubles, from the devastating tsunami of December 2004 to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, droughts, bird flu outbreaks, landslides, airline crashes and a vast, bizarre geyser of mud — a constant pounding of catastrophes that has worn down the national psyche and convinced many that something supernatural is going on.

“Since the day he took office there have been unending disasters,” said Permadi, a member of Parliament and a mystic, of the president. Like many Indonesians, he uses only one name. Mr. Yudhoyono was born under a bad sign, he said, and nature is demonstrating its anger at him and the nation.

But the flood that at one point inundated up to 70 percent of the city is traceable to more tangible problems, many here say. It exposes the limitations and dangers of Indonesia’s aging infrastructure. And it demonstrates the growing pains of a democratic transformation that could produce more responsive governments.

from the New York Times