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Jakarta Post

More residents moved under landslide threat

At least 1,300 people in two districts of Banjarnegara regency, Central Java, have been evacuated following signs of possible landslides on a hill located above residential complexes

Agus Maryono (The Jakarta Post)
Banjarnegara, Central Java
Fri, December 19, 2014

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More residents moved under landslide threat

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t least 1,300 people in two districts of Banjarnegara regency, Central Java, have been evacuated following signs of possible landslides on a hill located above residential complexes.

Of the evacuees, some 700 are from Tlaga subdistrict, Punggelan district, around 10 kilometers from Karangkobar district, which saw Jemblung hamlet swallowed by a major landslide last week

Around 400, meanwhile, are residents of Kertosari subdistrict, Kalibening district, while the remaining 200 are from Gintung village, Binangun subdistrict, Karangkobar.

'€œWe have been evacuating them since Wednesday afternoon. We don'€™t want to run the risk of a repeat of what happened in Jemblung,'€ Banjarnegara Deputy Regent Hadi Supeno told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Hadi said the evacuees had expressed similar concerns regarding the matter and had been very cooperative throughout the evacuation process.

'€œUsually it is very difficult to convince people to leave before a disaster happens,'€ said Hadi, adding that residents had been evacuated to a number of locations including subdistrict halls, school buildings and private homes.

Quoting reports from the respective subdistrict heads, Hadi said that the cliffs on the hill had developed cracks up to a meter wide.

Hadi also said that at least five new landslides had hit the cliffs along the road connecting Banjarnegara to Pekalongan, Central Java, causing the route to be blocked since Wednesday.

'€œVolunteers and military personnel have been deployed today to clear the route,'€ Hadi said.

The landslide that hit Jemblung on Friday buried alive 108 residents in 53 houses. As of Thursday, thousands of members of the joint SAR team were still evacuating bodies from the landslide site.

The field commander of the Jemblung landslide disaster victim search operation, Lt. Col. Inf. Edi Rochmatullah, said that two more bodies had been found on Thursday, increasing the death toll to 86.

Edi said that of the 86 evacuated bodies, 21 remained unidentified.

'€œMost of them are decomposing and no form of identification was found on them,'€ Edi told reporters on Thursday, adding that the victims were not necessarily Jemblung natives.

He said that seven of the victims were reported to be a family from Cirebon, West Java. Three of their bodies have been found and sent back to their home village, while the other four have not yet been found.

'€œWe are still working to find 22 others that are still missing. We hope to be able to find them all before the Dec. 21 deadline set by the Central Java governor,'€ Edi said.

The major landslide hit Banjarnegara on Dec. 12, burying 108 people and displacing around 200 others.

In addition to the hundreds displaced by the landslide, hundreds more residents living around the affected areas have taken refuge in the face of the threat of further landslides.

Banjarnegara, home to around 1.2 million people, is one of the many regencies vulnerable to landslides in Java. Of the regency'€™s 20 districts, only three are deemed safe from landslides.

The central government has promised to relocate 87 families affected by the Dec. 12 landslide to other areas in the regency safe from natural disasters.

At least 400 people in the regency have been buried alive in landslides over the past 10 years. Most were residents of the neighboring districts of Karangkobar and Banjarmangu, which are located in hilly and cliff-filled areas.

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