One of the lawyers handling the case, Alvon Kurnia Palma, said the floods on January 1 caused a loss of over US$3 million.
He said his clients have evidence that the city’s government had neglected flood prevention and mitigation efforts.
The government waited too long to warn people about impending floods, and then there is the issue of slow response to rescue or evacuate victims, he explained.
The lawyer also argued that city officials could have predicted that a devastating flood was imminent by measuring the water levels at flood control dams along Jakarta’s waterways.
