Indonesia is relocating its capital city from Jakarta to a site more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) away in the rainforests of Borneo Island.
The project is set to launch at the end of President Joko Widodo’s term in 2024.
Here’s why Southeast Asia’s largest economy is moving its administrative centre to Nusantara, a lush, biodiverse region home to the world’s oldest rainforests.
– Sinking city –
Jakarta is sinking at an alarming rate due to the excessive extraction of groundwater.
A study by Indonesia’s Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology in 2021 found that the sprawling megalopolis sinks about six centimetres on average every year, making it one of the fastest-sinking cities on earth.
“Building a sea wall is inevitable because the flood is already here but over time the dam will sink, and the flood will happen again,” Heri Andreas, an earth scientist at the Bandung Institute of Technology, told…
Source: Vanguard Newspaper
