A group of young people in the Indonesian city of Samarinda in East Kalimantan came up with a creative new way to protest flooding in their city — perhaps inspired by previous instances of Instactivism that shamed Indonesian authorities into acting.
In Samarinda, several youngsters came together to protest the persistent flooding in their city, not by holding up signs in front of city hall, but rather by making a viral video showing that the flooding was so bad that they could actually wakeboard on the streets of the East Kalimantan capital.
In the viral video, which was uploaded five days ago, young wakeboarding athlete Muhammad Fahri Ramadhan is seen surfing on the flood water. While wakeboarders are normally towed by a boat, Fahri can be seen being towed by a car in the video.
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“[May the floods] quickly recede, my Samarinda. We dedicate this as the form of our anxiety about the flooding, which has not yet subsided on its third day. With deep sorrow for the victims affected by the disaster, we pray that the floods will recede soon so they can immediately return home,” Fahri wrote in the caption.
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Much of Samarinda has been flooded for over a week — including the city’s main roads — with water levels reaching up to 1.5 meters high. The city administration has declared the flood a city emergency as up to 56,000 people were reportedly affected at one point, although that number has gone down to around 22,000 as of yesterday as flood water began continued to recede.
Officials say heavy rainfall caused the Mahakam River, a dam, and other nearby waterways to overflow. Authorities have also been cleaning up garbage brought by the flood, which has caused skin diseases among many Samarinda citizens.
The Samarinda city administration says they have earmarked IDR5 billion for disaster management for this particular flood while the East Kalimantan provincial government has chipped in with IDR2.5 billion.
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