Indonesia will carry out cloud seeding to try and prevent further rainfall over the capital, Jakarta, and surrounding areas the death toll reached 43 on Friday amid flash floods and landslides.

With more rain forecast, two small planes were readied to drop sodium chloride to break up potential rain clouds in the skies above the Sunda Strait with a bigger plane on standby, said Indonesia’s technology agency.

Torrential rains in the days either side of the new year have inundated swathes of Jakarta and nearby towns. The country’s meteorological agency called it “one of the most extreme” rainfall events since records began in 1866 and said climate change had increased the risk of extreme weather.

Cloud seeding or shooting salt flares into clouds in an attempt to trigger rainfall is often used in Indonesia to put out forest fires during the dry season.

Authorities on Thursday used hundreds of pumps to suck water out of residential areas and public infrastructure like railways. President Joko Widodo has blamed delays in flood control infrastructure projects for the disaster. Widodo announced in 2019 that he will move Indonesia’s capital to East Kalimantan province on Borneo island to reduce the burden on Jakarta, which is overpopulated and sinking.