Indonesian rescuers were searching for people trapped in a minibus buried in mud after flash floods and landslides hit several locations in North Sumatra Province, killing at least 27, an official said yesterday.
Torrential rain in the province since last week had caused flash floods and landslides in four districts, Indonesia’s disaster agency has said.
A landslide in a village in Deli Serdang on Wednesday killed seven and injured 20, North Sumatra police spokesman Hadi Wahyudi told reporters.
Photo: AP
Rescuers were looking for missing people, including those trapped in a minibus and other vehicles on a hilly interprovince road hit by a mudslide, Wahyudi said, adding that he could not give an estimate for the number of affected people.
In other places, rescue personnel have found 20 bodies during a search that started at the weekend. They were still searching for two missing people.
“Today, we are focusing our search to find missing people and clearing the roads affected by the landslides,” Hadi said, adding that excavators were deployed.
The landslides and flash floods damaged houses, mosques and rice fields.
Heavy rains also triggered floods in the provincial capital of Medan, forcing a delay in votes for a regional election in some polling stations.
Extreme weather is expected in Indonesia toward the end of the year, as the La Nina phenomenon increases rainfall across the tropical archipelago, the country’s weather agency has said.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared martial law in an unannounced late night address broadcast live on YTN television. Yoon said he had no choice but to resort to such a measure in order to safeguard free and constitutional order, saying opposition parties have taken hostage of the parliamentary process to throw the country into a crisis. "I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
‘KAMPAI’: It is said that people in Japan began brewing rice about 2,000 years ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol Traditional Japanese knowledge and skills used in the production of sake and shochu distilled spirits were approved on Wednesday for addition to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, a committee of the UN cultural body said It is believed people in the archipelago began brewing rice in a simple way about two millennia ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol. By about 1000 AD, the imperial palace had a department to supervise the manufacturing of sake and its use in rituals, the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association said. The multi-staged brewing techniques still used today are
RSS