Folks examine buildings broken by a flash flood in Agam, West Sumatra, Indonesia, on Might 13, 2024. | Photograph credit score: AP
On Might 14, rescuers searched rivers and the rubble of devastated villages for our bodies and, wherever potential, survivors of the flash floods that hit the Indonesian island of Sumatra over the weekend.
Monsoon rains and a landslide of mud and chilly lava from Mount Marapi precipitated rivers to overflow. The deluge devastated mountain villages in 4 districts of West Sumatra province shortly earlier than midnight on Saturday.
Additionally learn | Demise toll from floods in Indonesia rises to 41 and 17 lacking
The floods swept away folks and 79 houses and submerged a whole bunch of homes and buildings, forcing greater than 3,300 residents to flee to non permanent authorities shelters, Nationwide Catastrophe Administration Company spokesman Abdul Muhari stated.
Muhari stated 50 our bodies had been pulled from the mud and rivers as of Tuesday, principally within the worst-affected districts of Agam and Tanah Datar, whereas rescuers have been trying to find 27 folks reported lacking.
Tv stories confirmed rescue personnel utilizing jackhammers, round saws, farm instruments and generally their naked palms, desperately digging in Agam district, the place roads remodeled into murky, brown rivers and villages coated in thick mud, rocks and uprooted timber.
Dozens of rescue personnel have been looking via a river across the Anai Valley waterfall space in Tanah Datar district, the place tons of mud, rocks and timber have been left behind resulting from flash flooding.
Rescuers targeted on discovering 4 folks from a gaggle of seven who have been swept away by their vehicles. Three extra our bodies have been eliminated on Monday, stated Abdul Malik, director of the Search and Rescue Workplace in Padang, the provincial capital.
“With many lacking and a few distant areas nonetheless inaccessible, the demise toll is prone to rise,” Malik stated.
Heavy rains trigger frequent landslides and flash floods in Indonesia, an archipelago nation of greater than 17,000 islands the place hundreds of thousands of individuals reside in mountainous areas or close to floodplains.
The weekend catastrophe got here simply two months after heavy rain precipitated flash flooding and a landslide in western Sumatra, killing at the very least 26 folks and leaving 11 others lacking.
A shock eruption of Mount Marapi late final yr killed 23 climbers. The mountain’s sudden eruptions are troublesome to foretell as a result of the supply is shallow and near the summit, in response to Indonesia’s Heart for Volcanology and Geological Catastrophe Mitigation.
Marapi has been energetic since an eruption in January 2024 that precipitated no casualties. It’s among the many greater than 120 energetic volcanoes in Indonesia. The nation is susceptible to seismic upheavals resulting from its location on the Pacific “Ring of Hearth,” an arc of volcanoes and fault strains that encompass the Pacific basin.
