At least seventeen people have been confirmed dead after a landslide swept through a residential area of Indonesia’s West Java province, as rescue teams continued searching for dozens of people still missing under difficult conditions.
Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency said on Monday that the landslide struck Pasir Langu village in the Bandung Barat region early Saturday, following days of heavy rainfall that destabilized the hilly terrain.
Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari told Reuters that seventy three people remain unaccounted for after more than thirty homes were buried by mud and debris.
“The death toll has reached seventeen,” Muhari said, adding that search efforts were being slowed by persistent rain and unstable ground.
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The affected village lies about one hundred kilometers southeast of Jakarta, in an area prone to landslides during the rainy season.
Search and rescue teams have struggled to reach the site with heavy machinery because of poor weather and damaged access routes. Muhari said some of those caught in the landslide were officers taking part in border patrol training nearby at the time of the disaster.
A smaller landslide on Sunday, combined with ongoing rainfall, further complicated recovery operations, forcing teams to rely on drones and manual searches in some areas.
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Indonesia’s meteorology agency has warned that heavy rain is expected to continue across West Java and several other regions for at least another week, raising concerns about additional landslides.
The landslide followed a week of flash flooding across parts of Indonesia, including West Java and the capital Jakarta, where rising water levels forced residents to evacuate to higher ground.
The latest disaster comes just two months after cyclone driven floods and landslides on the island of Sumatra killed around twelve hundred people, destroyed thousands of homes, and displaced more than one million residents, according to government and humanitarian agencies.
