Heavy rains in Pekalongan trigger a devastating landslide, blocking a major highway and burying homes.
Rescuers in Indonesia proceed to seek for survivors after a landslide within the nation’s Central Java province killed not less than 19 individuals.
Torrential rain in Pekalongan caused a landslide on Tuesday on a major highway connecting the town with a vacationer space, the Dieng plateau.
Footage on native media confirmed the affected highway and homes buried and rice fields coated by mud, rubble and rocks.
Rescuers had been pressured to stroll about 4 kilometres (2.5 miles) to get to the location as a result of the highway was inaccessible. An excavator had been deployed to clear the mudslide whereas heavy rain and fog hindered rescue efforts.
“The joint search and rescue staff managed to search out and evacuate two our bodies … on Wednesday morning. The variety of fatalities recorded as of this afternoon is nineteen individuals,” mentioned Abdul Muhari, a spokesman for the Nationwide Catastrophe Mitigation Company (BNPB).
“The 2 our bodies discovered this morning had been a part of the record of individuals reported lacking within the tragic occasion.”
Search and rescue company Basarnas mentioned on Wednesday that 13 individuals had been additionally injured.
Heavy equipment was deployed to clear highway entry for search groups and about 200 rescue personnel have been despatched to assist the rescue effort, native official Mohammad Yulian Akbar mentioned.
“The main target is to seek for the victims,” he mentioned, including that the native authorities had declared an emergency within the district for 2 weeks.
Photographs shared by the catastrophe company confirmed rescuers carrying victims in physique luggage with bamboo stretchers underneath thick fog from the location.
The company warned residents that rain was anticipated within the subsequent few days which might trigger extra landslides and flash floods.

Indonesia is liable to landslides throughout the wet season, usually between November and April, however some disasters attributable to opposed climate have taken place exterior that season lately.
In December, 10 individuals had been killed in flash floods that hit hilly villages on the nation’s major island of Java.