Jakarta:
More than 50 individuals had been killed following flash floods and landslides swept via eastern Indonesia and neighbouring Timor Leste on Sunday, authorities stated, warning the toll could rise additional.
Floods sparked by torrential rain wreaked havoc and destruction on islands stretching from Flores Island in Indonesia to Timor Leste, a compact nation east of the Indonesian archipelago.
The deluge and subsequent landslides triggered dams to overflow, submerging thousands of homes and leaving rescue workers struggling to attain survivors trapped in the aftermath.
“Four sub-districts and 7 villages have been impacted. After verifying the data with our team in the field, we found that there are 41 people dead,” Indonesian Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesperson Raditya Jati told journalists, revising down earlier figures.
“27 people are still missing and nine people are injured,” he added.
Mud inundated properties, bridges and roads in the East Flores municipality, exactly where rescuers struggled to attain a remote and badly-hit location simply because of rains and powerful waves.
In neighbouring Timor Leste, 11 had been killed by floods in the capital Dili, authorities stated.
“We are still searching for the areas impacted by the natural disasters,” Secretary of State for Civil Protection for Timor Joaquim Jose Gusmao dos Reis Martins told journalists.
The death toll and the quantity of injured victims could nonetheless rise, authorities warned.
“Many people died”
East Flores deputy regent Agustinus Payong Boli estimated there had been 60 casualties in his municipality.
“The majority of them, 55, are in Lemanele village. Many people died here because the village was hit by both landslides and flash floods,” he told AFP, delivering numbers not however confirmed by national authorities.
Images from Lemanele showed engulfed homes, debris covering complete roads, fallen trees and broken energy lines.
In Lembata, an island halfway among Flores and Timor, components of impacted villages had been displaced down a mountain slope and close to the coastline, according to an AFP journalist on the scene.
Road access has been reduce off and neighborhood officials had been forced to deploy heavy gear to reopen the roads.
Injured victims have been evacuated to neighbouring villages that had been unaffected by the flash floods, as effectively as neighborhood hospital and overall health facilities.
Images from Lembata showed barefoot locals wading via mud evacuating victims on makeshift stretchers surrounded by collapsed homes.
Dams overflow
Separately on Sunday, two individuals had been killed in significant floods in Bima city in the neighbouring province of West Nusa Tenggara, according to the disaster agency.
Dams in 4 sub-districts also overflowed, submerging almost 10,000 homes in Bima following a nine-hour downpour, stated Jati.
Fatal landslides and flash floods are popular across the Indonesian archipelago through the rainy season.
January saw flash floods hit the Indonesian town of Sumedang in West Java, killing 40 individuals.
And final September, at least 11 individuals had been killed in landslides on Borneo.
The country’s disaster agency has estimated that 125 million Indonesians — almost half of the country’s population — live in places at threat of landslides
The disasters are typically triggered by deforestation, according to environmentalists.
()