JAKARTA – Already troubled by the rising death toll, Indonesia has initiated the attempt to prevent the massive rainfall by executing cloud seeding.

As a measure to counter the natural disaster, Indonesia has decided to go for cloud seeding to prevent heavy rainfall in the capital.

According to the disaster mitigation agency in Jakarta, the flash floods and landslides triggered by continuous downpour has taken the death toll to 43 and caused the displacement of tens of thousands of people.

The torrential rains that started on the New Year Eve has been recorded as ‘one of the most extreme rainfall’ by the country’s Meteorological, Climatological and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) said in a statement on Friday.

Citing the possibility of further damage by the rain, two small planes are kept in ready position to break up potential rain clouds in the skies.

“All clouds moving toward the Greater Jakarta area, which are estimated to lead to precipitation there, will be shot with sodium chloride(NaCl) material,” Indonesia’s technology agency BPPT said in a statement. “Hopefully they will break before they reach the Greater Jakarta area.”

The capital city had seen deadliest floods in 2007 and 2013.

Then, more than 50 people had died in one of the capital’s deadliest floods in 2007 whereas the overflowing of canals had swamped the city in 2013 as well.