At least 61 people were killed and 36 others went missing after
rain-triggered landslides hit Tawangmangu district at Karanganyar
regency of Central Java province on Wednesday, disaster management
agency said.
An official of the agency at the field Anggit M.S. told Xinhua
that rescuers, comprising soldiers, police and personnel from the
national rescue agency, were searching those missing under the
buried houses.
He said scores of houses and infrastructures were destroyed and
buried by the soil at eight spots, when the landslides occurred
early morning.
"Sixty-one people are dead and thirty-six other are missing," he
told Xinhua on telephone from the district.
Torrential rain and lack of forest coverage were blamed for the
accidents, said the official. "Two consecutive days of heavy rain
was the cause of the landslides," he said.
Indonesia has been frequently hit by flood and landslide due to
lack of forest-covered areas, which could not hold excessive waters
during heavy rains.
Activists have already warned that the forests in the area are
under threat from large-scale forest destruction.
Indonesia, which is losing its forests at the world's fastest
rate, is struggling to save its rain-forest from deforestation.
(Xinhua News Agency December 26, 2007)
