Indon landslide death toll rises as rescue continues
After at least 18 people died in two separate landslides in two different areas on Indonesia’s main island of Java, rescue teams dug through tons of mud and rubble searching for 34 missing people.
National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) spokesman Abdul Muhari said rescue teams have recovered more bodies since landslides triggered by heavy rains on Thursday evening, which hit dozens of houses in three villages in Central Java province’s Cilacap district, bringing the death toll to 16.
As the search continued for a fifth day on Monday, more than 500 rescue personnel, including police and soldiers, with the support of 22 excavators and 18 search dogs, were deployed in five devastated areas in Cilacap to search for seven villagers still reported missing, Muhari said in a video statement.
Muhari said a similar landslide hit Central Java’s Banjarnegara region just before sunset on Saturday, with tons of mud falling down surrounding hills and burying at least 30 houses, causing more than 800 residents to flee to safety, some of whom moved to higher ground prone to more landslides.
Rescuers recovered at least two bodies from devastated areas of Banjarnegara on Monday and searched for 27 people reported missing, he said, while local authorities scrambled to evacuate dozens of residents who had fled to sensitive hills to safer government shelters.
Muhari said BNPB has been carrying out a weather modification operation in both Cilacap and Banjarnegara districts since Sunday using an aircraft with a total of 3000 kilograms of planting material for the operation “to ensure that weather conditions remain stable to support more effective search efforts.”
Cloud seeding involves dispersing particles into clouds to create precipitation. Muhari said the purpose of changing the weather forecast was to redirect the rain and keep the search operation away from downpours that could hamper rescue teams’ progress.
Footage released by BNPB showed rescue teams backed by excavators desperately digging through villages where green terraced rice fields had turned into dark brown mud and villages were covered in thick mud, rocks and uprooted trees.
In Indonesia, a group of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous regions or fertile flood plains, seasonal heavy rains frequently cause landslides and floods.
