TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Rescues find 2 more bodies after Indonesian landslide
Change Size
A woman walks past the ruin of houses damaged by a landslide in the village of Banaran, Ponorogo, East Java, Indonesia, Sunday, April 2, 2017. The search for more than two dozen missing people resumed Sunday after a massive landslide hit the village on Indonesia's main island of Java. (AP/Trisnadi)
R
escue teams using heavy equipment recovered two more bodies Monday from a landslide that swept into a village on Indonesia's main island, bringing the number of retrieved bodies to four.
Officials estimate between 28 and 38 villagers are missing and believed buried by the landslide Saturday, which engulfed farmers harvesting ginger in Banaran village in East Java province's Ponorogo district.
Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, said the landslide stretched 1.5 kilometers (a mile) long and up to 20 meters (66 feet) high, and buried houses, overturned vehicles and left a massive scar on a hillside where lush vegetation was torn away.
Seventeen people were hospitalized, while about 100 others were able to escape.
Nugroho said a total of 1,655 rescuers from the disaster agency along with soldiers, police and volunteers searched Monday for the missing. Seven excavators were being used to dredge the mud, sand, rocks and fallen trees.
Two bodies were recovered on Monday, said Sumani, the head of the local disaster agency, who uses one name.
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelagic nation, is prone to landslides during seasonal rains. Many of the country's 256 million people live in mountainous areas or on fertile, flood-prone plains near rivers.
