Indonesia landslides kill 10, rescuers search for 42 missing

By Edward Era Barbacena 

Rescuers were looking for 42 people still missing on Tuesday after two landslides triggered by torrential rains hit villages on an island in Indonesia’s remote Natuna regency, disaster officials said .

Dozens of soldiers, police and volunteers joined the search in the villages of Genting and Pangkalan on a remote island surrounded by choppy waters and high waves in the Natuna Group on the edge of the South China Sea. There were reports of 42 people trapped in 27 houses which were buried under tons of mud from the surrounding hills.

The Natuna Disaster Agency lowered the death toll Tuesday morning to 10 from 11 despite fears it could rise. It said on its website that rescuers had removed 8 injured from the landslides, 4 of whom were in critical condition and were rushed to a hospital in the town of Pontianak on the island of Borneo, around 285 kilometers (180 miles).

The landslides displaced more than 1,200 people who were taken to evacuation centers and other shelters.

National Disaster Management Agency spokesman Abdul Muhari said authorities were still collecting information on the extent of casualties and damage in affected areas. He said two helicopters and several ships carrying rescuers and relief supplies, including tents, blankets, food and medical teams, left Jakarta and neighboring islands.

“Relief distribution has been difficult as the injured and displaced are scattered and hard to reach,” Muhari said, and the search and rescue operation was hampered by rainy weather around the disaster site. downed communication lines and lack of heavy equipment. .

Seasonal rains and high tides in recent days have caused dozens of landslides and widespread flooding across much of Indonesia, a chain of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or at proximity to fertile floodplains near rivers.

In November 2022, a landslide caused by a magnitude 5.6 earthquake killed at least 335 people in the city of Cianjur in West Java, around a third of them children.