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Indonesia: On Sunday, an official said that At least 14 people killed as torrential rains triggered a landslide on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island and three others missing in this landslide. After receiving information about this incident local police and rescue teams were reached on the spot.
local police chief Gunardi Mundu said that mud from surrounding hills fell on four houses just before midnight on Saturday in the Tana Toraja district of South Sulawesi province. He added that a family function was being held in one of the affected houses.
Search and rescue efforts were initiated in the remote, hilly villages of Makale and South Makale, with the assistance of numerous soldiers, police officers, and volunteers.Early Sunday, rescue workers pulled out two injured people, including an 8-year-old girl, and rushed them to a nearby hospital.
National Disaster Management Agency spokesman Abdul Muhari said rescue workers had recovered at least 11 bodies from Makale village and three from South Makale by Sunday afternoon. The search continues for the remaining three missing persons, including a 3-year-old girl. Muhari said damaged communication lines, bad weather and unstable soil were hampering rescue efforts.
Tana Toraja has several popular tourist attractions, including a site with traditional houses and wooden statues of bodies buried in caves, known as tau-tau. However, the region, like many parts of Indonesia, is prone to seasonal downpours that frequently cause landslides and floods. The archipelago nation, consisting of 17,000 islands, has millions of inhabitants living in mountainous areas or fertile flood plains, making them vulnerable to such natural disasters.
