Tornadoes are rare in Indonesia but they do occur. One appeared yesterday afternoon in Jakarta’s satellite city of Bogor and damaged hundreds of homes in densely populated neighborhoods as seen in a number of videos taken by those near the eye of the storm.
“Nine hundred houses were affected, spread across Lawanggintung, Cipaku, Batutulis and Pamoyanan subdistricts. The most severe damage was in Lawanggintung,” Bogor Mayor Bima Arya said while inspecting a location tornado had impacted on the Cipaku Highway in Lawanggintung today as quoted by Detik.
There has been one death reported as being caused by the tornado, a woman was killed when a tree hit her car on the road.
This video shows the terrible force of the wind in one Bogor neighborhood when it was hit by the tornado.
Mayor Bima said that around 400-500 families’ homes were so badly damaged that they had to be evacuated from their homes and were staying in temporary housing in places like mosques. Bima said that he would ask West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil for IDR 5 billion (US$350,0000) to add to the IDR 1.5 billion for disaster relief allocated in Bogor’s budget. He also called upon citizens to contribute food, clothing and donations to help those families affected by the natural disaster.
When the rare tornado does occur in Indonesia, it’s usually around this time of year when the weather transitions from dry season to rainy season. A tornado ripped that hit Sidoarjo, East Java, in late November of last year injured 35 people and damaging more than 600 homes.
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