58 Dead In Indonesia Floods And Landslides
Pastor Dale Morgan
58 Dead In Indonesia Floods And Landslides*
Palu, Indonesia (AFP) July 25, 2007
Indonesian search and rescue workers struggled in bad weather Tuesday to
reach survivors in flooded and landslide-hit Central Sulawesi, as the
death toll from the disaster rose to 58. The floods have affected some
36,000 people and are the latest in a string of natural catastrophes to
hit Indonesia, where activists have long warned that logging and a
failure to reforest denuded land will lead to repeat tragedies.
The head of the Central Sulawesi disaster control task force, Frits
Abbas, said that 58 people had been killed, but the bodies of most
victims were still buried under debris.
Days of heavy rains sparked floods that inundated Central Sulawesi's
Morowali district on Sunday, demolishing hundreds of homes and severing
transport links.
On Tuesday, two-metre (-yard) high waters also swept through Banggai
district to the east, said Rustam Pakaya, from the health ministry's
crisis centre in the Indonesian capital Jakarta.
The floods have affected some 20,000 people in 16 villages there, he
said, while the homes of some 16,000 others in Morowali were inundated.
Entire villages remain cut off in the area, located about 1,600
kilometres (1,000 miles) northeast of Jakarta, with torrents of mud and
water wiping out access bridges.
People are taking refuge in mosques and the homes of relatives, Pakaya said.
A provincial health office team travelled to the area by raft and had
arrived but there were no other details immediately available from them,
while the Morowali police chief was also in the area, he said.
A Hercules transport plane laden with six tonnes of medical supplies and
food left Jakarta at dawn Tuesday, while three doctors travelling to the
affected area from a regional hospital were stranded en route, he added.
Search and rescue efforts were hampered by flooded and blocked roads
into affected areas, while poor weather made flights and sea travel
dangerous, the disaster control task force's Abbas said.
"We are not even sure whether teams of soldiers and police dispatched to
the area have arrived," he said.
The teams left from various towns in the region on Monday.
In Uweruru village, a landslide hit on Sunday and a second followed
after dusk Monday, burying several buildings, including a small mosque
being used as a temporary shelter for survivors, district police chief
Sri Suharsono said.
"But we have as yet no report on the number of victims buried in this
landslide," Suharsono said.
Pakaya said later Tuesday that 16 bodies had been recovered in the
village and around 30 more were believed buried there, while reports of
10 deaths in a second village were being followed up.
Flooding in Central Sulawesi, where illegal logging is reported to be
rampant, submerged 16 villages in May and also forced thousands to flee
to higher ground. The south of Sulawesi was hit by floods in June last
year, leaving 250 dead and 100 missing.
Deforestation reduces the capacity of the ecosystem to regulate water
and also leads to soil erosion and landslides.
Source: Agence France-Presse