At least 69 people have been confirmed killed with another 59 missing as emergency workers search in rivers and the rubble of villages for bodies and possible survivors, following flash floods and landslides that struck through Indonesia’s Sumatra island.
Over the past week, Monsoon rains have reportedly caused rivers to burst their banks in North Sumatra province on Tuesday. The deluge tore through mountainside villages, swept away people and submerged more than 2,000 houses and buildings, the National Disaster Management Agency said. Nearly 5,000 residents fled to government shelters.
Television reports showed rescue personnel using jackhammers, circular saws, farm tools and sometimes their bare hands to dig in areas marked by thick mud, rocks and uprooted trees. Rescuers in rubber boats were searching through a river and helped children and older people who were forced on to the roofs of flooded homes and buildings.
In North Sumatra province the death toll rose to 37 as rescue personnel recovered more bodies on Thursday, said provincial police spokesperson Ferry Walintukan in a statement. Rescuers were searching for 52 residents reported missing, but mudslides, blackouts and a lack of telecommunications were hampering search efforts, he said.
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“With many missing and some remote areas still unreachable, the death toll was likely to rise,” Walintukan said.
Seventeen bodies were recovered by Thursday in South Tapanuli district and eight bodies in Sibolga city, Walintukan said. In the neighboring district of Central Tapanuli, landslides hit several homes, killing at least a family of four as well as one person found dead in floods in the city of Padang Sidempuan.
Rescue workers also recovered two bodies in Pakpak Bharat district and were searching for five people reported missing in Humbang Hasundutan, where four villagers were killed by landslides, Walintukan said. At least one resident died when mud and debris struck a main road on a tiny Nias island, and he added.
Floods were also occurring elsewhere in the vast archipelago, including in Aceh and West Sumatra, where thousands of houses were flooded, many up to roofs, the disaster agency said.
Rescuers by Thursday recovered at least nine bodies after landslides triggered by torrential rains struck three villages in Central Aceh on Wednesday, said the district chief Halili Yoga, who called on the local disaster agency to deploy and excavator to pull out at least two people buried under mud.
Aceh’s Disaster Mitigation Agency said nearly 47,000 people were displaced by floods in the province, forcing about 1,500 residents to flee to temporary shelters.
The flooding in West Sumatra province submerged thousands of homes, including more than 3,300 houses in Padang Pariaman district, forcing about 12,000 residents to flee to temporary shelters, the local disaster mitigation agency said.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
