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View all search resultsHundreds displaced as wildfire destroys village in Bangka Belitung Islands
Indonesia is grappling with its worst forest and land fires in 11 years, with Sumatra and Kalimantan among the worst-affected regions.
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A firefighter uses a tree branch to douse flames on Sept. 8 amid a wildfire in Palembang, South Sumatra. (Reuters/Abriansyah Liberto )
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t least 1,800 people have been displaced after a fire swept through a densely populated village in Bangka Belitung Islands over the weekend, destroying hundreds of homes.
The fire broke out at around 3:10 p.m. local time on Saturday in a peatland area near Serdang hamlet in South Bangka regency, said Agus Afandi, acting head of the Bangka Belitung Islands Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD).
Strong winds and dry conditions caused the blaze to spread rapidly into the nearby settlement, where many homes were built with wooden plank walls, Agus said.
“The fire spread rapidly through the village because most houses were built with wooden plank walls,” he said on Sunday as quoted by Kompas.com.
Authorities are still investigating the cause of the fire.
The fire affected 8.3 hectares of land in the area. Authorities had extinguished the main blaze by Monday, but cooling operations were continuing as fires remained active beneath the peatland.
The blaze destroyed 305 homes in the hamlet, with losses estimated at 2 billion rupiah ($111,000), Afandi said. No fatalities had been reported.
