REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PADANG - Padang Mayor Fauzi Bahar blamed illegal logging for big floods that hit five sub-districts in this West Sumatra capital yesterday. The floods triggered by heavy rain forced hundreds of families to flee their homes to safety, but there was no report of casualty. 

Illegal logging in the upper stream of the Lubuk Linggau and Batang Kuranji rivers that overflowed their banks must have caused the floods, Fauzi said here on Wednesday. He pointed to a number of big logs carried by the flood waters downstream to the village areas. 

He asked the villagers not to hesitate to report to police any suspects of illegal logging in their areas. "The city administration has not issued any logging license in the protected forest around the city," he said, adding, therefore, felling trees in the city forests is against the law. 

He said more than 20 percent of 12,000 hectares of protected forest around the city had been damaged because of illegal logging. The hardest hit is the forests in the sub-district areas within the city administration, he added. 

The city authorities have sent relief aid to the Batu Busuk village isolated by the floods. Batu Busuk was isolated as the bridge in the road leading to the village collapsed under the impact of the floods. 

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