Jakarta (dpa) - Landslides and floods
swept through two different provinces in Indonesia, leaving at least 16
people dead, dozens missing and hundreds homeless, officials and news reports
said Wednesday.
A landslide, triggered by torrential
rains, occurred in West Java at about 2 a.m. Wednesday, burying dozens
of houses in two villages of Garut district, 150 kilometres southeast of
Jakarta, the state-run Antara news agency reported.
As of Wednesday morning, rescue workers had recovered 12 bodies and saved five of the injured, Syaiful, an official at Garut's social affairs office, said in a telephone interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa.
Antara reported that as many as 524 families were living in the two villages hit by the mudslides. Rescue workers were still searching for missing members of 36 families.
The landslide also cut off railway traffic linking the Indonesian capital Jakarta to cities in Central and East Java via southern railway tracks, railway officials said.
Meanwhile, floodwaters swept through dozens of villages in Indonesia's Riau province on the eastern part of Sumatra, leaving at least four people dead and forced hundreds of others to flee their homes.
Triggered by several days of heavy rains, several rivers in Riau's Indragiri Hulu district overflowed their banks and inundated dozens of villages, Jakarta's leading Kompas daily reported.
Sjahril M.S., head of Riau's social affairs office, said up to 2,135 homes in 58 villages in six sub-district areas were inundated by the flood, adding that four people drowned when their small boat capsized in the Indragiri River.
More than 500 residents have been forced to flee their homes in Rengat sub-district, he said, adding that the heavy flooding in Riau also cut off land communications connecting cities in the eastern part of Sumatra because roads at several places were inundated up to one meter.
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Received by NewsEdge Insight: 01/28/2003 23:26:58
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