11 Missing, 14 Injured as Landslide Hits Brebes

Search and rescue for the missing persons is underway involving soldiers and volunteers.

Jakarta, MINA – A landslide hit Pasir Panjang Village, Brebes District, in Central Java, leading to 11 people going missing and 14 injured.

“As many as 11 people are still missing, and 14 injured people have been rescued,” Antara News quoted Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman of the Natural Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), as saying here, Thursday.

The missing people have been identified as Rasminah, Turkian, Haryanto, Juhari, Cumyati, Rismanto, Wastoni, Daswa, Sujono, Tarsinah, and Kuswanto.

The landslide occurred in the industrial forest area owned by state-run forestry company Perhutani BKPH in Salem Sub-district on Thursday at 8 a.m. local time while rain was falling.

Most of the victims are farmers, who were working in the agricultural fields when mud slid down a slope towards them.

The landslide also cut off access to roads connecting the sub-districts of Salem and Banjargarjo in Brebes District.

Meanwhile, the BNPB has, in fact, warned of flooding in several regions across Indonesia during the rainy season.

The agency has forecast that Indonesia will experience hydrometeorological disasters in 2018.

“It is forecast that floods, landslides, and whirlwinds will dominate natural disasters in 2018. It is estimated that 90 percent of the natural disasters would be hydrometeorological in nature,” Nugroho, spokesman of the BNPB, had warned in Jakarta in December 2017.

The rainy and dry seasons are expected to be normal this year. There will be no El Nino, which could cause a drought, nor La Nina, which could trigger excessive rains.

“However, floods, landslides, and whirlwinds will remain dominant, but their locations will depend on the intensity of precipitation,” he added. (T/RS5/RS1)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)