JAKARTA, Indonesia — With thousands of Asia’s top athletes preparing to descend on the Indonesian capital for the start of the 2018 Asian Games this weekend, city officials were in crisis mode about a heavily polluted river behind the athletes’ village.

After an emergency dredging and water purification project was deemed infeasible, officials came up with a plan to fix their river problem that would impress David Copperfield: They hid it.

Last month, workers erected a half-mile black nylon net covering the “kali item,” or Black River, a local nickname for the polluted waterway. For good measure, they laid rows of lights across the cover, creating a festive — albeit slightly perverse — evening light show.

Clogged with decades of garbage, the river, officially the Sentiong, is one of the most polluted of Jakarta’s 13 rivers and canals. The nearly stagnant water beneath the new net looks more like a tar pit, and releases a gag-inducing smell.