Rescue work continues in Java, 87 people feared dead

Rescuers their bare hands and shovels yesterday to pry muddy corpses from Indonesian villages devastated by landslides, as flooding blocked heavy equipment from reaching a disaster zone where at least 87 people were killed or feared dead.

Tens thousands of villagers have been forced from their homes after torrential rain sent hillsides crashing into central districts of Java island on Wednesday and caused swollen rivers to break their banks.

Soldiers, police and villagers have worked around the clock -- often lashed by seasonal downpours -- but the grim task of recovering bodies has taken days.

More 1,000 rescue workers resumed the search for bodies for a third day in Central Java's worst-hit Karanganyar district, still mainly using their hands and basic equipment, officials said.

"We have intensified the search today [Friday] by deploying more rescuers who started their work today at 5am," said Heru Aji Pratomo, the head of the local disaster management center.

Six bodies were retrieved from the gnarled wreckage yesterday, he said, bringing the total number of confirmed dead to 55, with around a further 11 still listed as missing.

A second excavator had arrived and more were expected to help the search in the hilly region, he said.

Landslides the way of earth-moving equipment initially, but then winding roads and poor weather hindered their progress.

A correspondent at the scene said large fallen tree trunks were hampering recovery efforts and chainsaws were needed to cut through them.

About the workers were troops drafted in from the military commands in nearby districts, he said.

District Rina Iriani told a local newspaper that of the 12 houses destroyed in worst-hit Mogol, at least three belonged to major cultivators of exotic anthurium flowers, for which the area is known.

In adjacent Wonogiri district, the head of the disaster management center said eight bodies had been recovered and nine remained missing. Only manual equipment was being used in the hunt, he said.

Most bodies in the disaster so far have been recovered by workers using their hands and crude equipment such as planks of wood.

In East Java, where raging floods swept away a major bridge, police said about 50 people were estimated to be missing based on witness accounts of vehicles on the bridge at the time.

The state Antara news agency reported that the bodies of two children aged six and seven had been recovered.

"Both children were found by local people combing the river's banks," a district police chief, Sunarta, was quoted as saying.