Indonesian rescue workers yesterday trawled through remote villages and scoured islands for bodies and survivors from floods and landslides in South Sulawesi as the death toll rose to 216.
The disaster hit on Tuesday after heavy rains lashed six districts across the province earlier in the week, and workers have been struggling to search for bodies and survivors since, hindered by landslides and the remote location.
The death toll in worst-hit Sinjai district stood at 196, while 60 people remained missing, said Eki Basuki, an official at the local disaster relief center. The state Antara news agency said 20 more people died in five other districts, lifting the toll across the province to over 200.
Workers were airlifted into mountainous villages in the affected areas in a desperate effort to uncover more bodies, said Ibrahim, another relief official in Sinjai.
"The search and rescue team arrived in Sinjai Borong on Thursday but communication is difficult so we don't know if there are more victims," he said.
The airforce had dropped emer-gency food and medicine supplies, but little was known about the condition of the survivors in the mountains as mudslides had blocked access, he said.
Navy teams were still hopeful they could recover more bodies and were combing the sea yesterday around the Pulau Sembilan islands off the coast of Sinjai, as well as the Sinjai coast itself, Ibrahim said.
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