SAR team blocks river in search of missing ITB student

A joint Search and Rescue (SAR) team has built temporary embankments at several points along Cikandang river in Pakenjeng, Garut regency, West Java, as the search for a missing student at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) goes on.

The student, Angelina Yofanka, 19, has reportedly been missing since Sunday afternoon while rafting with 55 other members of university wildlife adventure clubs in Bandung, West Java. She was allegedly trapped after she was swept under some undercut rocks.

The team, comprising National Search and Rescue Agency officers, members of wildlife adventure clubs, local residents and police officers, blocked some parts of the river using wood, bamboo and tarps, to ease the searching process for the divers.

“The river has been blocked so that the current under the undercut rocks is not too heavy. That will ease the divers’ task of finding her,” ITB deputy rector for academic and student affairs Kadarsyah Suryadi said on Tuesday in Bandung, West Java.

He said the team was also going down the river from the last point of the raft to the downstream, using five rubber boats, and combing the riverbanks from the eastern to western side. The team also installed a net downstream.

Angelina disappeared after she and three other participants jumped into the water to keep their inflatable raft balanced when it was about to flip while passing Tanjungjaya village in Pakenjeng. Her three friends came back to the surface a few seconds later while Angelina did not resurface.

Angelina, a winner of the Dean List award from the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, was one of 30 members of the KMPA Ganesha ITB wildlife adventure club who went rafting with 26 other members of wildlife adventure clubs in Bandung, West Java, on Sunday.

Kadarsyah said that three out of 10 rubber dinghies used by the rafting participants were rescue boats, which were placed at the front, middle and back of the group. (swd)