Indonesian President Joko Widodo has said that there is an urgent need to build a giant sea wall around Jakarta to prevent the coastal capital from sinking.

A giant sea wall in Jakarta to prevent sea water from flowing into land and causing floods (Photo: AP)

In a recent interview, he said this huge project will need to be done quickly to prevent Jakarta from sinking under the sea.

It is time to move ahead with the sea wall, a project the government first began to consider a decade ago, he said.

Oceans are rising around the world as a result of climate change and global warming, causing dangerous flooding in coastal areas. Jakarta is one of the world's fastest sinking cities.

The Associate Press reported that over-extraction of groundwater for drinking and commercial use is the main cause of its rapid subsidence, while the weight of high-rise buildings erected in recent years exacerbated the problem.

Jakarta is prone to flooding, especially during the monsoon season. It suffered from a catastrophic flood in early 2007, with around 80 people killed and half a million people displaced.

Models of experts at the Bandung Institute of Technology showed that about 95 percent of North Jakarta will be submerged by 2050, said Heri Andreas, head of the institute.

(Source: VNA)