Landslides kill at least 15 in Indonesia after year of disasters

admin Avatar

Search and rescue teams gather for a briefing during a search effort to find victims from the landslide in Sukabumi, West Java Province, Indonesia January 1, 2019 in this picture obtained from social media. SEKOLAH RELAWAN/via REUTERS

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian rescue teams were searching for victims of a series of landslides that killed at least 15 people on New Year’s Day, officials said, after a year of natural disasters killed thousands.

At least 20 people were missing after landslides during heavy rain buried 30 houses in Sukabumi regency, West Java.

“Loose soil is a danger to rescue teams that are working in the field,” said disaster mitigation agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.

Heavy rain had forced rescuers to suspend the search on Tuesday.

Indonesia is a disaster-prone archipelago that in 2018 suffered its deadliest year in over a decade in a series of earthquakes and tsunamis in different regions killed more than 3,000 people.

Reporting by Bernadette Christina Munthe; Writing by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by Nick Macfie

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

EUROPEAN JOURNAL

The European Journal

The best selection of news and current affairs from Europe

Search
Cateegories
Tags

There’s no content to show here yet.