JAKARTA — A group of Indonesian citizens affected by the late-2025 Sumatra floods and landslides have filed a lawsuit with a court in Jakarta in an effort to hold the Indonesian government accountable for what they describe as an “ecological disaster.” The disasters claimed more than 1,200 lives and damaged more than 600,000 buildings across three provinces, resulting in more than 100 trillion rupiah ($5.6 billion) in estimated economic losses. The plaintiffs argue the damage from Cyclone Senyar was amplified by decades of policy failures, including deforestation, extractive concessions, degraded watersheds, weak zoning, poor environmental enforcement and the absence of an effective early-warning system. Through the lawsuit, the plaintiffs are effectively asking the court to determine whether the catastrophe transcended a natural calamity and could be categorized as a foreseeable failure of governance linked to environmental degradation and state inaction. The lawsuit combines elements of Indonesia’s citizen lawsuit mechanism with a challenge to alleged unlawful government administrative inaction under a 2014 law on public services. Alfi Syukri, a lawyer with the West Sumatra chapter of the Legal Aid Institute (LBH), who is representing the plaintiffs, noted that Indonesia’s meteorological agency, the BMKG, had repeatedly warned authorities about the potential for extreme weather linked to Cyclone Senyar before the disaster intensified. “So in Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra [provinces], the head of BMKG Region 1 had already issued warnings eight days before [the Nov. 25 landfall], then repeated them four days before, and again two days before,” BMKG chief Teuku…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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