Indonesian floods spread, 82 dead
Pastor Dale Morgan
Indonesian floods spread, 82 dead*
PALU, Indonesia, July 26 (AFP) Jul 26, 2007
Floods on Indonesia's Sulawesi island have spread to three provinces and
left 82 people dead, officials said Thursday as torrential rains lashed
survivors and hindered recovery efforts.
Floods and landslides first hit Central Sulawesi province on Sunday and
have left 22 dead and 47 missing, presumed buried under landslides, said
Rustam Pakaya, who heads the health ministry's crisis centre in Jakarta.
Rising waters have now also hit North and South Sulawesi provinces, he
said, leaving a total of 13 dead.
Some 45,000 people are estimated to be affected in Central and North
Sulawesi but no figure was yet available for the southern province, he said.
A navy ship carrying a medical team was headed for Baturube, a coastal
village nearest to the areas hit in Central Sulawesi, he said, while
teams from Makassar in South Sulawesi were also dispatched to help
survivors.
The police chief in worst-hit Morowali district in Central Sulawesi said
20,000 people have registered as fleeing their homes.
Suhartono said that relief aid from Jakarta including medicine,
blankets, tents and body bags, had arrived on board a Hercules aircraft
in the provincial capital Palu and was being distributed by truck,
helicopters and a navy boat.
The Hercules left Jakarta on Tuesday, but was hit by engine trouble then
poor weather.
A reporter for ElShinta radio, speaking from Uweruru, one of the
villages worst hit by landslides in Central Sulawesi, said search and
rescue efforts were continuing without heavy machinery amid heavy rains.
Indonesia has been repeatedly afflicted by deadly floods in recent
years, with activists warning that logging and a failure to reforest
denuded land in the world's fourth most populous country will continue
to cause tragedies.