Rescuers dig for bodies after Java landslides

Rescuers today pulled dozens of bodies from villages devastated by landslides in western Indonesia, many digging through mud with their bare hands as they were lashed by rain.

Blocked roads hampered efforts to get heavy-lifting equipment to the remote area.

Officials said 36 bodies had been recovered and that 42 other people were buried and feared dead in the landslides which happened yesterday in central Java province following days of heavy rain.

In east Java province, police were searching a swollen river after a bridge collapsed yesterday as several motorbikes passed over it. Three people were rescued and officers were trying to determine if there were any victims in the incident, police said.

The landslides sent hillsides collapsing on to homes in several places. Most of the victims were killed in a single village in Karanganyar district, hours after they finished clearing the mud from an earlier, smaller landslide.

“I am searching for my cousin and my sister who are still buried beneath the mud,” said Wiryo Hamidi as he dug through the remains of his village. “I hope we can find them today so I can bury them.”

Villagers, police and soldiers uncovered two more bodies in Karanganyar this morning, one of them a young child, said Heru Aji Pratomo, the head of the local disaster co-ordinating agency.

“Everyone is working hard, we have good spirits,” he told el-Shinta radio station.

Mr Pratomo said rescuers were using high-powered hoses to wash away at the mud, but blocked roads and the remote location of the landslides meant mechanical diggers and backhoes had yet to arrive.

Thirty-six bodies had been recovered so far in Karanganyar, he said, with at least 30 other people buried and feared dead there. Other officials – who said there were a dozen other victims elsewhere in the region – have given slightly different tolls.

Seasonal rains and high tides in recent days have caused widespread flooding across much of Indonesia, the world’s fourth most-populous nation. Millions of people live in mountainous regions and near fertile flood plains that are close to rivers.

The latest disasters occurred on the third anniversary of a massive earthquake off Sumatra in December 2004 that triggered a tsunami. That killed more than 230,000 people and left half a million homeless in a dozen countries.