ON Monday last week, hundreds of disembarking passengers waited anxiously at the arrivals lounge of Soekarno-Hatta International Airport at Cengkareng. For nearly three hours they waited for buses that would take them out of the airport. But none arrived. Like other vehicles on Sedyatmo toll road leading to the airport, the buses were held up by a sudden gush of floodwater.

The toll road was inundated after a dike 26 kilometers north of the ai