Collapsed: Rescuers still searching for the missing at the landslide area in Bogor, West Java. — AFP
THE death toll from a landslide on a remote Indonesian island rose to 50 with four people still missing on the last day of the search, an official said.
The landslide struck the island of Serasan on March 6, killing scores of residents in a village and burying houses under mud and debris.
“Until yesterday 50 people have been found dead, 49 of them have been identified while four others are still missing,” government spokesperson Patli Muhamad said.
At least eight of the dead were children, according to local search and rescue teams scouring the island, located in the Natuna region.
Nearly 3,000 residents remain displaced and were being evacuated to several shelters, according to local authorities.
“They are afraid to go home because there are total blackouts in some villages,” Muhamad said.
Officials were planning to meet to determine whether to extend the search and rescue operation.
During its rainy season, Indonesia is prone to landslides, which have been aggravated in some places by deforestation, with prolonged rain causing flooding in some areas of the archipelago nation.
Meanwhile, a landslide triggered by heavy rains hit the city of Bogor, just outside the capital of Jakarta, late on Tuesday.
At least two people were killed and four others are still buried under the mud, the country’s disaster management agency said on Wednesday. — AFP
