Rains add woe after Indonesia floods, landslides

Jakarta, July 25: More rain has brought further misery to survivors of landslides and floods that have killed around 60 people on Indonesia's Sulawesi island, rescue officials said today.

Days of heavy downpour have caused landslides and floods up to three metres high, submerging hundreds of homes in Central Sulawesi province, which lies about 1,700 km northeast of the capital, officials said.

The poor weather and a lack of heavy equipment are hampering efforts to rescue about 23 people believed buried under the landslides and to provide food for survivors, said Frets Abast, coordinator of provincial provincial disaster relief teams.

Helicopter food drops were halted today because of the rain, he said.

''The recue work is still being done using manual equipment.

There's no heavy equipment at all,'' Abast told sources.

He said vehicles carrying relief supplies had difficulty reaching the disaster zone because because roads and bridges had been submerged or destroyed.

The National Disaster Relief Coordination Agency said 57 people had been killed and 23 others were missing after the landslides and flooding.

About 100 homes were damaged and 5,000 people had been displaced.

Deadly landslides occur frequently in Indonesia, where tropical downpours can quickly soak hillsides stripped of trees with little vegetation to hold the soil.

Central Sulawesi is also one of Indonesia's key cocoa growing areas.

The Southeast Asian country is the world's third largest producer of cocoa beans.

Reuters>