Landslides, floods kill 188 in Indonesia's Sulawesi

Jakarta, June 22 : The death toll from landslides and floods on Indonesia's eastern Sulawesi island this week has reached 188, and another 145 people are missing, an official said today.

A search-and-rescue operation has been underway in South Sulawesi province after two days of heavy rain at the beginning of the week. Sinjai regency was the worst-hit area after flooding early on Tuesday, police and disaster officials say.

''The total dead are 188. Sinjai has 174 of the deaths. The total number of missing people is 145,'' Moersen Buana of the disaster task force told Reuters by telephone from provincial capital, Makassar, about 1,400 km (870 miles) east of Jakarta.

The Indonesian military, police, and civilian search and rescue teams have been scouring the affected areas, seeking to recover bodies and digging into piles of mud from landslides to look for survivors.

Torrential rains and landslides are regular features of tropical Indonesia.

Rampant deforestation often adds to the ease with which hillsides are saturated and collapse as well as to flooding, since the lack of vegetation means less ground water is retained, environmentalists say.

Sulawesi is resource-rich, with numerous mining operations, but those are far from the affected areas, a mines ministry official said yesterday.

''The landslide is in the south where there is no mining operation. Mining operations in other areas have no problem,'' M S Marpaung, director of mineral resources in the mines and energy ministry, told Reuters.

The central government has sent blankets, medicines and sarongs for the affected people of Sulawesi, and instructed local officials to help people move to safer areas.

Reuters

Related Stories
Landslides and floods kill 51 in Indonesia