The Current - Death toll climbs from deadly floods across Indonesia

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

There’s been at least 16 storms since the start of the year across Asia. Most recently a series of cyclones, monsoons and floods have killed more than 1,000 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Hundreds are still missing, hundreds of thousands are displaced, and several million are impacted. We speak with Lesthia Kertopati, senior journalist for BBC Indonesia about how days after the storm many on the Indonesian island of Sumatra are still desperately looking for their loved ones — and the challenges in the way of relief efforts.

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Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Deadly storms have been sweeping through Asia. There have been at least 16 of those storms since the start of the year. Vietnam alone has experienced 14. The Philippines was hit by two in just one week. And most recently, a series of cyclones, monsoons.

monsoons and floods have killed more than a thousand people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Hundreds of people are still missing. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced and several million have been impacted. Days after the storm, many on the Indonesian island of Sumatra are still desperately looking for their loved ones. One man was seen carrying a picture of his missing wife. I live alone. Where else can I go? I just want my wife to be found. Even if it's just a piece of her hand, as long as I can recognize her, that's enough.

Lestia Kertupati is a senior journalist at BBC Indonesia. She is in Jakarta. Lestia, hello. Hello. Can you describe, I mean, looking at the images, it's shocking. Just describe the scale of the devastation that we've been seeing in Indonesia. It's been really devastating. So in Indonesia, in Sumatra Island, there are three provinces severely impacted by these flash floods and landslide.

And from the three provinces, around 50 regions have been badly affected. More than around like 300 bridges got destroyed, thousands of homes swept away. And up until today, it's more than 800 people. died and hundreds still missing. I mean, when you take a look at those images, part of it is just, it looks like pieces of lumber, wood just kind of scattered everywhere, where houses and perhaps trees had been, but also just entire cities kind of submerged underwater. Yes, true.

Even, you know, in Achev province, there's four villages that completely submerged, just gone and become the river. What about where you are? You're in Jakarta. Was there an impact of the storms there? In Jakarta, we have, like, a lot of rains, and Jakarta have experienced quite a lot of flood. But it's not as bad as in Sumatra. I'd said that hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced.

Where are the people who have lost their homes, who've seen their homes submerged or swept away? Where are they going? So mostly they're in the shelter right now, but also... Some of them are staying with their relatives that are living uphill. There have been calls for the Indonesian government to declare a national disaster after these floods. What is happening, given what you're describing, what's happening when it comes to getting aid in to the region? Yeah, a lot of people cried for, like, you know, to our president to declare this as a state of a state of a region. emergency and a national disaster, but, you know, in history, Indonesia only have two

times declare a national disaster with the first one is tsunami in 2004, and the second one is when COVID happened. So, with this kind of disaster, like we seen in Palu years ago, it's the same thing. The government didn't declare a national disaster, and also, you know, aid distribution has still been hampered because a lot of bridges and roads been destroyed by the flash floods. What do we know about that? How difficult is it to get aid into people who need it? It's really difficult because the main road has been completely destroyed and a lot of muds and woods and big stones covered. the street. So mostly volunteers and rescue team have to reach to the isolated area by walking. One of the volunteer that I interviewed said that he has to walk more than 17 kilometers to reach

the area with much needed help. So they're carrying aid 17 kilometers in to help people. Yes, and they have to, as to fat, that kind of thing. First, they take the logistics with cars, and after the road's gone, they're using motorbikes, and after that small road's gone, they walk with all of that aid. Is there any way, I mean, that seems exhausting and would mean that you wouldn't be able to get a lot of aid in there. Is there any way to drop it in from the air, for example? Yes, there's been effort to do airdrop, but also because the area is isolated and it's situated. on top of the mountain.

So airdrops also can only carry limited supplies to the people. So, yeah, there's still a lot of areas that need help. And do we know whether other nations are helping Indonesia out in this? I mean, not declaring a national disaster perhaps would limit that. But has there been a call for or the receipt of aid from elsewhere to try to assist in that effort? Yes. As Malaysia has been sending medicines to Ache, which is really close from Malaysia and Singapore as well. I mean, given, again, the scale of the destruction, you can't imagine when people are going to be able to get home, right?

Because it's not just their homes that have been wiped away. It's all the infrastructure that would be around those homes. So what's going to happen? Where are people going to be for the next period of time? Well, most of them are still going to be staying with their relatives, and also some of them going to be going to. stay in the shelters, but the condition in the shelters is not great as well. A lot of people started to get sick. Mostly they have fevers and also a difficulty of breeding. And sanitation has also become a problem right now because clean water is hard to get. I mentioned in the

introduction that it's not just Indonesia. There have been a number of storms throughout the region. You're there. What has that been like over the last several months? Well, here in Indonesia, usually this kind of month, we have rainy season. And in the past years, the rain is become like more and more hard. And also it's maybe because of this global warming to happen. More of cyclones comes to Indonesia, whether it's unusual to get cyclone in Indonesia. Asia, because we sit in the equator. And so the storms that you're getting are not the kind of storms that people are used to.

Yeah, it's like the weather that you experience like in a century, once in a century, but now it become more frequent. I was reading as well about the impact of deforestation. How has that shaped what we've seen over the course of these storms? So, Sumatra is known for palm oil plantation and also a pulp plantation. And those kinds of companies have been cut down in the forest for decades. And we have data that shows palm plantations getting bigger and bigger throughout years for the last three decades. And that, I think, contribute more.

to the severe damage that we have because without forests, the water is just like go down to the river and the river got overflowed and, you know, causing the flood. So are there conversations that are happening? I mean, people are still picking through the immediate impact of these storms?

So are there conversations happening about how to live with these? sorts of storms. If the storms are becoming more frequent and more dangerous, how to mitigate the sort of impact of them? Our researchers has been, you know, giving education to the government and also to the people on this kind of weather that's going to be more frequent. But there's only still, you know, a little bit of mitigation that happened. Like, for example, in this disasters, there's no warning whatsoever to prepare people of. having flash floods and landslide.

So I think it also contributes to a lot of casualties that we have right now. That people had no idea this was coming their way. Yes. Lestia, thank you very much for this. You're welcome. Lestia Kertupati is a senior journalist with BBC Indonesia. She's based in Jakarta. This has been the current podcast.

You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m. time zones or you can also listen online at cbc.ca.ca slash the current or on the CBC listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.