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Rescue workers combed through the debris of rivers and villages on Thursday, searching for bodies and survivors whenever possible, after flash floods and landslides swept across Indonesia’s Sumatra island, killing 49 people and leaving 67 missing.
The water level of rivers has increased due to the monsoon rains last week. North Sumatra Province Tuesday. The National Disaster Management Agency said the floods devastated mountain villages, sweeping away people and inundating more than 2,000 homes and buildings. About 5,000 residents fled to government shelters.
Seventeen bodies were recovered in South Tapanuli district and eight in Sibolga city as of Thursday, North Sumatra provincial police spokesman Ferry Walintukan said in a statement. In the neighboring district Central Tapnauli, landslides affected several houses, killing at least four people.
Walintukan said rescue workers also recovered two bodies in Pakpak Bharat district and were searching for five people missing in Humbang Hasundutan, another district devastated by a landslide that killed two villagers. At least one resident died after mud and debris fell on the main road on the small island of Nias, he said.
“The death toll is expected to rise with many people missing and some remote areas still inaccessible,” Walintukan said.
Cloud seeding is planned
Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said more rainfall was forecast in North Sumatra province and the risk of extreme rainfall would continue into next week.
It recommended modifications to the weather to reduce rainfall, and disaster agency head Suhariyanto said cloud seeding would be carried out to prevent further rainfall and flooding.
“We are deploying weather modification techniques from tomorrow so that there will be no rain during this emergency response period,” Suharyanto, who like many Indonesians is known by a single name, told reporters before visiting flood- and landslide-hit areas in the city of Sibolga on Thursday.
Cloud seeding involves spreading particles into clouds to produce precipitation, which would then be redirected away from areas where search and rescue efforts were underway.
Television reports showed rescue workers using jackhammers, circular saws, farm equipment and sometimes their bare hands to dig through areas covered in thick soil, rocks and uprooted trees. Rescuers in rubber boats were searching a river and helping children and elderly people who were forced onto the roofs of flooded homes and buildings.
Deadly floods hit other provinces of Sumatra island
The disaster agency said flooding was also occurring elsewhere in the vast archipelago, including Aceh and West Sumatra, where hundreds of homes were inundated, many with their roofs collapsed.
Rescue workers had recovered at least nine bodies by Thursday after torrential rains triggered landslides that hit three villages in central Aceh on Wednesday, said district chief Halili Yog, who called on the local disaster agency to deploy diggers to pull out at least two people buried under mud.
Aceh’s disaster mitigation agency said about 47,000 people were displaced by flooding in the province, forcing about 1,500 residents to flee to temporary shelters.
In West Sumatra province, rescue teams recovered the bodies of six people who were drowned in flooding in the Lumin Park residential area of the provincial capital Padang, the local disaster agency said. More than 3,300 houses were submerged in Padang Pariaman district due to the floods.
The local agency said rescue workers were searching for 14 people believed to be buried under mud and rocks in the mountainous Jurong Toboh village, while landslides also cut bridges and blocked main roads, leaving some residents isolated.
Heavy seasonal rains from about October to March often cause floods and landslides in Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile floodplains.
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Reported from Carmini jakartaIndonesia.