Inggris `Babak Belur` Dihantam Badai dan Banjir
Britain Battered by Severe Storms and Rising Water Levels
Editor : Cahyani Harzi
Translator : Dhelia Gani
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London (B2B) - Perdana Menteri David Cameron memperingatkan pada Selasa bahwa banjir yang melanda sejumlah kawasan di negara itu sepertinya akan memburuk.
Cameron membatalkan lawatan yang belum diumumkan ke Israel dan kawasan Palestina pekan depan karena harus tetap di dalam negeri untuk menangani banjir sementara pemerintah menghadapi kecaman karena dianggap tak siap.
Tentara dikerahkan membantu mengatasi banjir yang situasinya memburuk di bagian selatan Inggris sementara ratusan rumah terendam di sepanjang daerah aliran Sungai Thames dan layanan tarnsportasi kereta api terganggu akibat cuaca buruk, seperti dilansir Yahoo News.
Kota-kota dan desa di sepanjang sungai tersebut di sebelah barat London berubah jadi laguna.
Lebih 1.000 rumah telah dikosongkan di sepanjang Thames, di desa-desa dan kota seperti Wraysbury, Datchet dan Chertsey dan situasi diramalkan memburuk karena hujan lebat dan badai bergerak pada Jumat.
"Tak ada tanda ancaman ini akan berkurang, dan hujan serta angin kencang diramalkan masih terjadi pekan ini, keadaan memburuk sebelum membaik," kata Cameron kepada wartawan di kantornya Downing Street.
"Dana bukan masalah dalam usaha pertolongan. Berapapun yang diperlukan akan dikeluarkan. Kami akan mengambil langkah-langkah yang diperlukan," kata dia.
Terkait dengan rencana kunjungannya ke Timur Tengah, Cameron mengatakan dia akan terus "memimpin tanggap nasional" dengan memimpin komite COBRA yang dilakukan pemerintah.
Dia mengatakan bahwa dirinya telah mengirim permintaan maaf kepada Perdana Menteri Israel Benjamin Netanyahu dan Presiden Palestina Mahmud Abbas, "tetapi yang lebih penting ialah menangani banjir".
Lawatan Cameron ke Timur Tengah itu merupakan yang pertama sejak ia menjadi perdana menteri pada 2010.
Banjir untuk pertama kali melanda kawasan pedesaan Sommerset di bagian baratdaya tetapi sekarang meluas ke kota-kota dan desa-desa sepajang Thames di bagian tenggara, dan mendekati London.
Sebanyak 1.600 tentara telah dikerahkan dan sebagian sudah mengisi karung-karung dengan pasir di Wraysbury, tempat seorang warga mengeritik Menteri Pertahanan Philipi Hammond.
Su Burrows, seorang sukarelawan pengawas banjir, mengatakan usaha bantuan telah diserahkan ke warga seperti dirinya dan meminta Hammond bantuan militer untuk membagi-bagikan karung-karung pasir.
"Maaf saya jadi emosional. Ada 100 orang di desa ini yang kerja bakti, tak seorangpun dari (badan lingkungan hidup)," kata dia dengan nada emosi kepada Menhan dalam percakapan di stasiun televisi Sky News.
Burrows mengatakan bahwa kecamannya tampak berbuah karena 2.000 karung pasir dikirim ke Wraysbury, yang kemudian disusul segera oleh 100 serdadu.
Hammond sebelumnya menyatakan bahwa pemerintah tidak dapat "mencegah alam."
London - Prime Minister David Cameron warned Tuesday the British floods were likely going to get worse before they got better, pledging money was now no object to battling back the rising waters.
Cameron scrapped a previously unannounced trip to Israel and the Palestinian Territories next week in order to stay home and deal with the floods, as the government faced renewed criticism that it was under-prepared.
Troops were sent in to help deal with the worsening situation in southern England as hundreds of homes were swamped along the River Thames and rail services succumbed to the bad weather.
Affluent towns and villages along the Thames to the west of London have been transformed into lagoons.
More than 1,000 homes have been evacuated along the Thames, in villages and towns such as Wraysbury, Datchet and Chertsey and the situation was set to worsen with heavy rain and storms on the way by Friday.
"There is absolutely no sign of this threat abating, and with further rain and strong winds forecast throughout the week, things may get worse before they get better," Cameron told reporters at his Downing Street office.
"Money is no object in this relief effort. Whatever money is needed for it will be spent. We will take whatever steps are necessary," he said.
As for his planned Middle East trip, Cameron said he would instead continue to "lead the national response" by chairing the government´s COBRA emergency committee.
He said he was sending his apologies to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, "but nothing is more important than dealing with these floods".
It would have been Cameron´s first trip to the region since becoming prime minister in 2010.
Flooding first hit the largely rural southwestern county of Somerset but has now engulfed towns and village along the swollen Thames in the southeast, encroaching towards London.
A total of 1,600 troops have been deployed, and some were already at work filling sandbags in Wraysbury, where one resident had a bitter exchange with Defence Secretary Philip Hammond.
Su Burrows, a volunteer flood warden, said the relief effort had been left to residents like her and pleaded with Hammond for military help to distribute sandbags.
"I´m sorry, I am going to get emotional. There are 100 people of this village currently working together, none of them (Environment Agency) agents, not one," she told him in the exchange on Sky News television.
Burrows told AFP later that her blast seemed to have borne fruit, as 2,000 sandbags were sent to Wraysbury, followed soon afterwards by 100 soldiers.
Hammond earlier cautioned that government cannot "prevent the course of nature".
