Indonesia, drought in 2,726 villages across country

Emergency Operations Center of the Indonesian National Disaster Management Authority (BNPB) has released that despite normal dry season over the course of 2017, 2,726 villages in 105 cities / regencies. Due to the drought, 3.9 million people are in need with immediate access to clean water. The drought also resulted in crop failure across 18,516 hectare agricultural land (out of a total 56.334 hectare in those cities/regencies). BNPB in their public release emphasized the drought crisis situation in West Java, Central Java, Yogyakarta, East Java, West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara provinces. In Central Java, drought crisis occurs in 1,254 villages across 30 cities/regencies and affecting 1.41 million people; thus provincial government stated drought emergency status until October 2017. In West Java, drought observed in 496 villages of 27 cities/regencies and affecting 936,328 people, whereas 8 out of 27 regencies declared drought emergency status. In East Java, drought observed in 588 villages of 23 regencies / cities. Similarly, drought emergency status also being declared in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) and East Nusa Tenggara (NTT). In NTB 318 villages in 9 regencies were experiencing drought as well as in 9 regencies in NTT. In Yogyakarta, 32 villages that are homes to 12,721 people also declared drought emergency status. Meanwhile, drought impact in Banten and Bali were still under investigation. Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics (BMKG) foretasted that the peak of dry season will continue until the end of October 2017. As a response, BNPB has provided water dropping and financial assistance to its local government counterparts (BPBDs) with financial support for those who have declared drought emergency status.