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Scores feared dead after landslide in Indonesia

Landslides triggered by days of heavy rains killed at least 32 people in eastern Indonesia yesterday. Scores more were feared dead, buried beneath the mud, officials said.

Roads made inaccessible after a three-day deluge were complicating rescue operations, said Frans Lebu Raya, the vice governor of East Nusa Tenggara Province, where two landslides occurred early yesterday.

Rustam Pakaya, the chief of the Health Department's Crisis Center in Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, said he received a fax from the region saying that 32 bodies had been recovered from the Cibal and Lambaleda districts.

The fax also said that 20 people were missing.

"We have not been able to get heavy machinery to the villages, because landslides have also cut off the main road to the area," Raya told reporters.

"Many parts of the road also have collapsed," Raya said.

Seasonal downpours cause dozens of landslides and flash floods each year in Indonesia, a vast chain of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas prone to landslides or near fertile plains prone to flooding.

Only weeks ago, floods in Jakarta killed almost 100 people and paralyzed large sections of the city.
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