Port of Merak is a

seaport A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as H ...

located in the Pulo Merak District of the city of

Cilegon Cilegon ( Indonesian: ''Kota Cilegon'', Sundanese: ) is a major coastal industrial city in Banten province, Indonesia, covering . It is located on the island of Java. The city had a population of 374,464 at the 2010 Census and 434,896 at the 2020 ...

Banten Banten ( id, Banten; Sundanese: , romanized ''Banten'') is the westernmost province on the island of Java, Indonesia. Its capital city is Serang. The province borders West Java and the Special Capital Region of Jakarta on the east, the Ja ...

, on the northwestern tip of

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

. The port and district are named after the green peafowl, which once lived in the region, but now only lives in the nearby

Ujung Kulon National Park Ujung Kulon National Park is at the westernmost tip of Java, in Banten province of Indonesia. It includes the volcanic island group of Krakatoa in Lampung province, and other islands including Panaitan, as well as smaller offshore islets such a ...

. The port is connected to Jakarta via the Jakarta-Merak Toll Road and is also connected to the Bakauheni port which is located at the south of the

Trans-Sumatran Highway The Trans-Sumatra Highway (Indonesian: ''Jalan Raya Trans-Sumatra'') is a primary north–south road in the Indonesian island of Sumatra, 2,508.5 km in length, and connecting the northern island at Banda Aceh to Bandar Lampung in the south ...

History

In 1883, the original settlement was completely destroyed by a series of

tsunamis A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater expl ...

generated by the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in the Sunda Strait. The largest wave at Merak was estimated to be at least 41 m (135 ft) high. Approximately 2,700 people lost their lives, including virtually all of the town's inhabitants at that time.

Features

A large thermal electric power plant is located close to Merak where coal barges handle large quantities of coal. A new LPG jetty handles liquid gases for distribution in Banten province, tankage has been built at Merak. The town of

is about 15–20 km from Merak port. There is heavy truck traffic on the road from Cilegon to Merak so the road is often in poor condition. In downtown Cilegon there is a hypermart mall and some shanty shops. Karaoke bars for sailors are not hard to find.

Port operations

The port is a key transport link between Java and Sumatra and is a major service provider for the heavy passenger and commercial ferry traffic from Merak to Bakauheni across the Sunda Strait on the southern tip of Sumatra. Ferry services are operated by ASDP Indonesia Ferry. Growth in demand for ferry services has been rapid in recent years. The facilities at the port are now very badly overstretched. The ageing ferry fleet and poor supporting infrastructure are major restrictions on the port's efficiency. Long delays for passengers, buses and trucks waiting to board the ferries are common, especially at peak times of the year such as holiday periods when daily demand rises to over 2,000 cars and up to 500 buses per day. It is not unusual for trucks to bank up for 10 kilometers or more from the port on the Jakarta-Merak Toll Road and be held up in queues for two or three days. It is partly because of problems of this kind that consideration is being given to the very ambitious Sunda Strait Bridge project. Merak port also provides services for Indonesia's largest concentration of

petrochemical Petrochemicals (sometimes abbreviated as petchems) are the chemical products obtained from petroleum by refining. Some chemical compounds made from petroleum are also obtained from other fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas, or renewable so ...

facilities located nearby along the Merak peninsula. More than 40 petrochemical plants operate near the seaport, an increase from two in 1990. In 2007 Shell Oil announced plans to expand its Merak port operations with the construction of a $US52 million oil storage tank.

References

Bibliography

Winchester, Simon Simon Winchester (born 28 September 1944) is a British-American author and journalist. In his career at ''The Guardian'' newspaper, Winchester covered numerous significant events, including Bloody Sunday and the Watergate Scandal. Winchester ha ...

. '' Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883.'' New York: HarperCollins, 2003. {{ISBN, 0-06-621285-5 M Cilegon

History

Features

Port operations

See also

References

Bibliography