/ 5 January 2006

Rescuers search for landslide survivors in Indonesia

Soldiers and volunteers used their bare hands on Thursday to search for survivors buried beneath tonnes of mud and rock after landslides wiped out several Indonesian villages, leaving more than 210 people dead or missing, officials said.

Close to a thousand grieving relatives and curious onlookers watched from behind police lines in the village of Cijeruk as rescue workers pulled more than a dozen corpses caked in heavy mud from the debris, including a mother clinging to her child.

Twenty-six bodies have been recovered since Wednesday, when the landslide cascaded on to the farming community just before dawn, said Aris Sudaryanto, coordinator of the search and rescue efforts.

Nearly 100 others were missing and feared dead.

Meanwhile, helicopters were trying to reach survivors in the remote district of Jember, hundreds of kilometres to the east, where the death toll from flash floods earlier this week climbed to 103, said local government spokesperson Purwanto. Dozens more were unaccounted for or stranded.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was planning to visit some of the affected areas on Java island later on Thursday, and the United States and Australia together pledged more than $200 000 in emergency assistance for the thousands of people left homeless.

The money will be used to charter helicopters to evacuate the injured, drop emergency aid and assess damage, and for the purchase of medicine, plastic tarps, hygiene kits and sleeping mats.

Skies cleared on Thursday after days of torrential rains, providing some relief to the hundreds of soldiers, police and volunteers painstakingly digging through the debris as excavators shoved aside earth and decimated wooden homes.

Some people who returned to the disaster zones on Thursday were hoping for word about loved ones.

Suparno, a 25-year-old farmer from Cijeruk, said he was outside his home when a wall of mud, rocks and trees tumbled down the 50m hill flanking his village. He ran before he could warn his family, the sound of people screaming trailing behind him.

”I lost everyone,” he said. ”My grandparents, my uncle, aunt, nieces, nephews — nine people in all.”

Many villagers managed to escape Cijeruk hours before the landslide, worried that the soil wouldn’t hold after they heard deep rumbling and cracking sounds coming from the top of the hill. But others were at home either sleeping or performing Muslim prayers at the local mosque when the landslide hit.

Saryono (50) watched helplessly as dozens of his neighbours were sucked beneath the heavy mud — 7m deep in some places.

”They were yelling ‘Allah Akbar’, and then were slowly buried,” said the fruit farmer, who was buried waist deep until other villagers came to his rescue. ”I saw them buried alive.”

Meanwhile, in Jember, which was struck by landslides and flash floods on Monday, many roads and bridges were destroyed, hampering rescue efforts. Two helicopters were being used to ferry stranded and injured villagers to safety.

With rains finally subsiding, emergency crews managed to pull another 26 bodies from the mud on Thursday, bringing the death toll in Jember to 103, said Purwanto.

Heavy tropical downpours cause dozens of landslides and flash floods each year in Indonesia, where millions of people live in mountainous regions and near fertile flood plains close to rivers.

Jember is 900km east of Jakarta and 450km east of Cijeruk. — Sapa-AP