JAKARTA, Indonesia – Two landslides caused by heavy rain and unstable soil have killed at least 12 people on Java, Indonesia’s most populous island, and have left rescue workers in search of survivors, disaster officials said on Sunday.
Among those killed in the landslides in West Java province were the head of a local disaster relief agency and a captain in the Indonesian Army who went to help rescue the survivors of the first landslide on Saturday afternoon. They were caught in a second landslide that night.
The landslides also destroyed a bridge and cut several roads in the village of Cihanjuang in West Java. Rescuers worked late into the night, but faced an urgent need for heavy machinery to help move the earth and reach potential survivors.
“The first landslide was caused by heavy rain and unstable soil conditions,” said Raditya Jati, a spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency. “Subsequent landslides occurred while the police were still evacuating the victims in the area of the first landslide.”
A woman whose family lives in the village, Dameria Sihombing, said her father, mother, nephew and niece were at home in the village at the time of the landslide. All four are still missing, she said by telephone from Jakarta, the Indonesian capital about 145 kilometers to the northwest.
The first slide buried the family home, she said, and the second slide, which was larger than the first, buried even deeper. Many viewers were also on the way to the second slide.
“Many people came to see the rescue team and suddenly the second landslide happened,” she said. “There were more victims of the second because it was much bigger than the first slide. My family is buried inside the house and so far they have not been found. “
Sihombing said his parents, both 60, moved to the village after retiring two years ago from the city of Bandung, about an hour away.
Many people were not at home at the time of the landslide because it was too late, she said. But those at home included her parents’ neighbors – a mother and three children. She did not know if their bodies had been found.
Deadly landslides are common in Indonesia, where deforestation and illegal small-scale gold mining operations often contribute to unstable soil conditions.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo warned in October that the country could experience more floods and landslides than normal due to the periodic weather pattern known as La Niña. The rainy season is expected to last until March.
“I want all of us to prepare in anticipation of possible hydrometeorological disasters,” said the president at the time.
A local disaster official said that around noon on Sunday, rescue workers were still trying to determine how many people were missing. Eighteen people were injured.
A video of the scene showed a river of mud that swept through a densely populated neighborhood, apparently crushing and covering several buildings.
A video clip of the scene provided by the National Search and Rescue Agency showed rescuers working at night, placing a body on a stretcher and taking it away.
Another showed a backhoe lifting a muddy van so that rescuers could reach the ground beneath it. The van said “Fight the virus” on the back.
The first landslide hit the village hours after a Sriwijaya Air passenger jet crashed into the Java Sea after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, under heavy rains, killing all 62 on board.
Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,500 islands in Ecuador, has already been covered by vast tropical forests. But over the past half century, many of the forests have been burned and cleared to make way for palm plantations and other agricultural land.
With 270 million inhabitants, Indonesia is the fourth largest country in the world and Java, its most populous island, has more than 140 million inhabitants.