Deaths as landslides hit Indonesia

03/03/2007| IslamWeb

Landslides triggered by days of heavy rain in eastern Indonesia have killed at least 40 people and 29 others are believed to be buried.
 
"An evacuation team is digging to search for the victims, but we are facing problems because of bad weather and heavy rain," Yos Nono, an official at the disaster management office in Manggarai regency, said.
 
The heavy rains also caused flooding and washed away dozens of homes in six hilly districts in East Nusa Tenggara province, Nono said.
 
Officials had no estimate of the number of people who may have been displaced from their homes, but the government was distributing food to victims.
 
Santoso Ginting, the district police chief, said on MetroTV: "Of 73 people reported [missing], we have recovered 40 bodies. Four people were found alive and we are still searching for 29 more people."
 
Indonesia is in the middle of the rainy season when landslides are frequent in the country.
 
Tropical downpours can quickly soak hillsides where deforestation has left little vegetation to hold the soil.
 
Quake hits homes
 
Indonesia is a vast chain of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains.
 
A moderate earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale also struck Indonesia's Papua island on Saturday, damaging homes, but caused no serious damage or deaths, a meteorological official said.
 
The quake struck 67km southeast of Manokwari, the capital of West Irian Jaya province, at a depth of 33km, an analyst at the meteorology and geophysics agency, said.
 
Indonesia lies in the so called "Pacific Ring of Fire" where seismic activity is frequent because of the shifting of tectonic plates.

Photo caption

Indonesia map