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Rescue workers dug through tons of mud and debris on Monday in search of 34 people missing after two separate landslides hit two separate areas on Indonesia’s main island. Java At least 18 people were killed.
National Disaster Mitigation Agency or BNPB spokesman Abdul Muhari said dozens of houses in three villages in Cilacap district of Central Java province were damaged in a landslide triggered by torrential rains on Thursday evening, after which rescue workers recovered more bodies, raising the death toll to 16.
More than 500 rescue workers, including police and soldiers, with the help of 22 excavators and 18 sniffer dogs, have been deployed to five devastated areas of Cilacap to search for seven villagers who are reportedly still missing, Muhari said in a video statement, as search efforts continued for the fifth day on Monday.
Muhari said a similar landslide occurred in the Banjarnegara district of Central Java just before dusk on Saturday, when tons of soil slid down nearby hills and buried at least 30 homes, sending more than 800 residents to flee for safety, some of them to higher ground, threatening further landslides.
Rescue workers recovered at least two bodies from devastated areas of Banjarnegara on Monday and were searching for 27 people reported missing, he said, while local authorities struggled to evacuate dozens of residents who had fled to vulnerable hills to safer government shelters.
The BNPB was conducting a weather modification operation using an aircraft with a total of 3,000 kilograms (more than three tons) of seed material for the operation from Sunday, Muhari said, “to ensure that weather conditions remain stable to support more effective search efforts”.
Cloud seeding involves spreading particles into clouds to produce precipitation. Muhari said the purpose of modifying the weather was to direct rain elsewhere and keep search operations free from heavy rain, which could hamper the progress of rescue teams.
Images released by the BNPB showed rescue workers, aided by excavators, rapidly digging through villages, where green-terraced rice fields had turned into murky brown soil, and villages were covered in thick mud, rocks and uprooted trees.
Seasonal rains frequently cause landslides and floods in Indonesia, a chain of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or fertile floodplains.