Indonesian drivers help students cross muddy roads so they can get to school clean

The muddy road had stopped traffic.

Keyla Supharta | May 10, 2023, 05:23 PM

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A video of Indonesian drivers taking the initiative to carry children through mud puddles so they can get to school clean went viral on social media.

According to Tribun News, the incident happened in North Labuhan Batu, Indonesia.

The video showed a badly damaged road filled with potholes and pools of stagnant mud, which would be difficult to cross, had it not been for the drivers' assistance.

What happen

The viral video showing the muddy street was uploaded by @fakta.indo, an online news portal on Instagram and had been viewed 718,000 times at the time of writing.

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A post shared by Fakta Indo | Berita Indonesia (@fakta.indo)

The video showed the road horribly affected by muddy puddles.

Several lorries and trucks could also be seen. One truck and one lorry closest to the camera had visibly sunk into the mud.

The road was "totally destroyed", @fakta.indo wrote in the caption. "Children [even] had to run into mud puddles to get to school".

Some drivers couldn't bear to see the children walking through the mud puddles, so they "took the initiative to help by carrying the children" so their shoes would not get dirty.

These children were wearing the national primary school uniforms, with white tops and red bottoms.

Badly damaged for years

According to the caption in the video, the road condition in North Labuhan Batu of Sumatra Province had been badly damaged for years.

Residents around the area even planted 1,000 trees along several damaged roads on Sep. 22 2022, yet their actions failed to receive any attention from social media.

"We have done tree planting action in the middle of the road as a form of protest to the government of North Sumatra province .. but until today there is no response from the provincial government," one citizen said, as quoted by @fakta.indo.

Background

An Indonesian TikToker went viral recently for creating a video listing reasons why he felt the Indonesian province of Lampung is not improving. One of the reasons he cited was the condition of the roads in Lampung.

"The roads are just patched up," he said.

The viral video prompted Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) to inspect the affected area.

Following his visit, Jokowi urged Indonesians to "report" and send "video evidence" to him directly on Twitter if the roads in their area were "badly damaged and have not been repaired for a long time".

"Road infrastructure is important to support the flow of movement of goods and people," Jokowi said.

Since then, Jokowi's social media had been tagged in many social media posts showing badly damaged roads all over the country.

The video capturing the muddy road in North Labuhan Batu was one of the videos that was raised to Jokowi.

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Top image via @fakta.indo/Instagram.