Indonesian rescue teams on Sunday resumed search-and-rescue operations for at least 80 people reported missing after a deadly landslide struck a residential community in West Java province, killing 10 people, authorities said.
The landslide swept through Pasir Langu village early Saturday after days of heavy rainfall, burying homes and cutting off access roads in the hilly region about 60 miles southeast of Jakarta.
The disaster has intensified fears of further casualties as severe weather is expected to continue across parts of the country.
Indonesia’s weather agency said the landslide was caused by intense rain that began a day earlier and warned that similar conditions could persist for up to a week in West Java and several other provinces.
The prolonged rainfall has raised the risk of additional landslides and flooding, particularly in mountainous and deforested areas vulnerable to soil erosion.
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Local resident Dedi Kurniawan, 36, said the scale of the disaster was unlike anything he had seen before in his village.
“Sometimes we only have small floods from the nearby river,” he told Reuters. “But this time, the landslide came from the forest.”
Emergency crews struggled to reach survivors as unstable terrain and continuing rain made it unsafe to deploy heavy machinery, according to Kompas TV, citing local officials.
Rescuers have instead relied on manual digging and smaller equipment while trying to prevent further collapses in the saturated hillside.
Authorities said dozens of families have been displaced, with many residents moving to higher ground or shelters in safer areas.
The landslide occurred amid widespread flooding across West Java, including in parts of the Jakarta metropolitan area, where overflowing rivers forced evacuations and disrupted transport.
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Officials urged residents in flood-prone zones to remain alert as water levels continue to rise in several districts.
The tragedy comes just two months after cyclone-driven floods and landslides devastated Indonesia’s Sumatra island, killing around 1,200 people, destroying thousands of homes, and displacing more than one million residents.
Indonesia, an archipelago prone to earthquakes, floods, and landslides, has seen increasingly severe weather events in recent years — a trend scientists link partly to climate change and environmental degradation.
