AP journalists document Indonesians living in homes permanently flooded by seawater. “It’s just like the ocean here now,” says one resident.
Erosion resulting in loss of land mass is one of the biggest impacts of global climate change, forcing countless people to leave their homes. With that in mind, Indonesia chief photographer Dita Alangkara and Jakarta-based reporter Victoria Milko set out to capture what happens to people for whom relocation is not an option, who have nowhere else to go as their homes are repeatedly flooded or engulfed by the ocean.
The idea for the story emerged last year when Alangkara heard rumors of villages that were permanently inundated by ocean water, the residents sometimes trapped in their flooded homes by the rising tides. Alangkara visited villages on the northern coast of Central Java, an eight-hour drive from Jakarta, to see for himself. The trip resulted in a small photo package, but he knew there was much more.
Dwi Ulfani, 18, who is studying airport management, stands inside her flooded home in Timbulsloko, Central Java, Indonesia, July 30, 2022. When asked what she wants to do after school — stay in the village or move elsewhere — she begins crying as she responds in a whisper, “Move.”
AP Photo / Dita Alangkara
Mar’iah sits outside her house at the end of the village’s elevated walkway, waiting for the water to subside in Timbulsloko, Central Java, Indonesia, July 31, 2022. Mar’iah explains that she sits in the chair every day waiting until her house is dry enough to enter again. Wooden platforms used previously to elevate the house have flooded and remain underwater.
AP Photo / Dita Alangkara
Kumaison stands on the pathway leading to her house in a flooded neighborhood of Timbulsloko, Central Java, Indonesia, July 30, 2022. Kumaison says her home has been raised with concrete and dirt three times, each time being followed by even higher flooding. She remembers her neighbors’ rice fields and shrimp ponds as a thriving business, but now, “Everything is gone,” she says.
AP Photo / Dita Alangkara
Suratmi, who is paralyzed, lies in her bed as her daughter Ngatiroh, walks on the dirt floor that has been raised to prevent flood water in their house in Timbulsloko, Central Java, Indonesia, July 30, 2022. Ngatiroh said that after her mother Suratmi's home collapsed due to flooding, she moved her mother into the windowless home that they now share. Ngatiroh wants to move to a new, drier home, but the family lacks the financial resources. Instead, she says, she will just keep adding layers of dirt to raise the home above the rising water, trying to keep her aging mother safe.
AP Photo / Dita Alangkara
Wahidah stands on the porch of her home with friends in Timbulsloko, Central Java, Indonesia, July 31, 2022. “It’s just like the ocean here now,” she says. A man comes on a boat during the week to sell residents the things they used to be able to grow or raise for themselves. Houses have collapsed around them.
AP Photo / Dita Alangkara
Sudarto stands at the door of his home as his daughter Turiah looks out from the flooded house in Timbulsloko, Central Java, Indonesia, July 31, 2022. Seawater is a permanent fixture in the home; items of value, including a refrigerator and clothes, are kept on wooden platforms above the water.
AP Photo / Dita Alangkara
Zuriah stands outside her flooded home in Mondoliko, Central Java, Indonesia, Aug. 1, 2022. Unable to afford to move, Zuriah continues to live in the house even as nearly all of her neighbors move away. Last November 11 homes were occupied in the village. By this summer, only five were occupied.
AP Photo / Dita Alangkara
Sukarman walks on a flooded pathway outside his house in Timbulsloko, Central Java, Indonesia, July 30, 2022. Sukarman thinks younger people, such as his granddaughter Dwi Ulfani, should try to move out of the village if they can. But he’s resigned to the fact that with no money or other family homes, he’s likely to spend the rest of his life living in an increasingly flooded home.
AP Photo / Dita Alangkara
Then, this summer, AP’s Climate and Environment team launched a series on climate-driven migration. Alangkara and climate photo editor Alyssa Goodman began brainstorming how best to document people who were forced to live in flooded homes. They landed on the idea of environmental portraits, posed images of people at home despite the ever-present water.
Alangkara and Milko rode a train, then motorbikes and finally a boat to the villages, where they waded through fetid, waist-deep water — avoiding floating dead fish and slithering water snakes — while taking note of the tidal schedule to safely come, go and meet with people living in the villages. Besides those physical challenges, the pair also had to convince residents to let journalists into their lives, to share their stories and allow themselves to be photographed in difficult circumstances. Although it had been less than a year since Alangkara’s first visit, he could already see a massive decline in living conditions for the villagers.
The pair interviewed and photographed 10 families, giving a full sense of how people are coping with water in their homes — at least until their homes are completely washed away. The images and text are disturbing — 18-year-old Dwi Ulfani stands in her living room in several inches of water while a television and other devices are plugged into outlets — but they also convey the dignity and resilience of people adapting as best they can to extreme conditions.
The story was used widely, from the Seattle Times to the Taiwan Times and beyond, and is starting to have an impact: The weekend after it moved, the piece was shared by Southeast Asian environmental and human rights networks. Human Rights Watch’s Indonesia researcher has reached out to Milko to get more information on the villages and people in them.
For intrepid coverage that brings to light the grim effects of climate change on the most vulnerable, Alangkara and Milko earn AP’s Best of the Week — Second Winner honors.
In photo at left, Indonesia chief photographer Dita Alangkara approaches a permanently flooded home in Timbulsloko, Central Java, Indonesia, July 31, 2022. At right, Jaka Sadewa, his wife Sri Wahyuni and son Bima pose for a photo at the home. “I’m worried that every year the water will get higher. But we don't have any resources,” Wahyuni says. “If we had resources, we would move out.”
AP Photos / Victoria Milko (left); Dita Alangkara
The pair interviewed and photographed 10 families, giving a full sense of how people are coping with water in their homes — at least until their homes are completely washed away. The images and text are disturbing — 18-year-old Dwi Ulfani stands in her living room in several inches of water while a television and other devices are plugged into outlets — but they also convey the dignity and resilience of people adapting as best they can to extreme conditions.
The story was used widely, from the Seattle Times to the Taiwan Times and beyond, and is starting to have an impact: The weekend after it moved, the piece was shared by Southeast Asian environmental and human rights networks. Human Rights Watch’s Indonesia researcher has reached out to Milko to get more information on the villages and people in them.
For intrepid coverage that brings to light the grim effects of climate change on the most vulnerable, Alangkara and Milko earn AP’s Best of the Week — Second Winner honors.
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