Heavy rains in Pekalongan cause a devastating landslide, blocking a main road and burying houses.
Rescuers in Indonesia continue to search for survivors after a landslide in the country’s Central Java province killed at least 19 people.
Torrential rain in Pekalongan caused a landslide on Tuesday on a main road connecting the city with a tourist area, the Dieng plateau.
Footage on local media showed the affected road and houses buried and rice fields covered by mud, rubble and rocks.
Rescuers were forced to walk about four kilometres (2.5 miles) to get to the site because the road was inaccessible. An excavator had been deployed to clear the mudslide while heavy rain and fog hindered rescue efforts.
“The joint search and rescue team managed to find and evacuate two bodies … on Wednesday morning. The number of fatalities recorded as of this afternoon is 19 people,” said Abdul Muhari, a spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB).
“The two bodies found this morning were part of the list of people reported missing in the tragic event.”
Search and rescue agency Basarnas said on Wednesday that 13 people were also injured.
Heavy machinery was deployed to clear road access for search teams and about 200 rescue personnel have been sent to help the rescue effort, local official Mohammad Yulian Akbar said.
“The focus is to search for the victims,” he said, adding that the local government had declared an emergency in the district for two weeks.
Images shared by the disaster agency showed rescuers carrying victims in body bags with bamboo stretchers under thick fog from the site.
The agency warned residents that rain was expected in the next few days which could cause more landslides and flash floods.
Indonesia is prone to landslides during the rainy season, typically between November and April, but some disasters caused by adverse weather have taken place outside that season in recent years.
In December, 10 people were killed in flash floods that hit hilly villages on the country’s main island of Java.
