JAKARTA: Waist-deep floods brought the Indonesian capital Jakarta to a standstill Thursday, with roads impassable, thousands of homes under water, and the president forced to roll up his trousers at the palace.
The muddy waters paralysed the city, which is home to 20 million people and already notorious for its chaotic traffic, with drivers in snaking queues stuck for hours and cyclists pushing their submerged bikes with only handlebars and seat-posts visible.
By Wednesday night almost 10,000 people had been forced to flee their homes, with two people reportedly killed, including a two-year-old boy who was swept away.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was pictured in the whitewashed grounds of the presidential palace Thursday with his trousers rolled up to his knees, brown waters lapping his calves and threatening to flood the shrubbery.
"Jakarta is flooded, hopefully there won't be too many victims. We will provide assistance as soon as possible," he told photographers, ordering military, police, and disaster officials to ensure public safety.
A morning meeting between Yudhoyono and visiting Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was delayed for two hours.
City bus operator TransJakarta stopped operating several routes as roads were inaccessible, it said on its Twitter account.
The monsoonal floods also blocked some roads to the airport and closed businesses across the city, including in the upmarket central business district.
Motorists trying to avoid the deluge went off-road, driving along pavements and central reservations, and heading the wrong way down one-way streets.
Office workers snapped photos of the snarling traffic, while commuters lofted their bags above their heads to wade through the waters, or hitched a lift on passing carts.
Authorities raised the flood alert to its highest level early Thursday, national disaster management agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said, describing the city as "besieged".
"The situation could get worse in the coming days as the rain shows little sign of abating," he told.
As of Wednesday night the floods had driven almost 10,000 people from their homes in the city and reports said two people had been killed, a two-year-old boy and a 46-year-old man who was electrocuted.
Several areas on Thursday reported power cuts, which affected drainage pumps -- making it even more difficult to contain the floods, Nugroho said.
Indonesia is regularly afflicted by deadly floods and landslides during its wet season, which lasts around half the year, and many in the capital live beside rivers that periodically overflow.
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