Thousands of people were evacuated in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta on Tuesday after floods swamped the region, officials said, with heavy rain expected to continue over the next few days. Torrential rain since Monday has triggered floods of up to 3-metres (yards) in and around Jakarta, the country’s disaster agency said in a statement, blocking some roads and submerging over 1,000 houses and many cars. Jakarta Governor Pramono Anung raised the alert level to the second highest of the critical stages, calling on the local government to activate water pumps to extract water from flooded areas and conduct weather modification operations – which typically includes shooting salt flares into clouds to trigger rain before they reach land. Local media reported floodwaters also swamped a hospital in the eastern town of Bekasi, with water entering some wards, forcing the evacuation of patients to other buildings, while other parts of the hospital were hit by power outages. Rescuers on rubber boats sailed through thigh-high water to evacuate residents that had been trapped in floods since 4 a.m. (2100 GMT) at a housing complex in Bekasi, Reuters reporters said.