At least two dead after landslide in East Java

This article is more than 12 months old

Apr 03, 2017 06:00 am

JAKARTA At least two people were killed and 26 others feared buried under heavy mud after a landslide struck Indonesia, the national disaster agency said yesterday.

Nineteen people were also injured when the landslide slammed into 32 houses in the village of Banaran in Ponorogo district, East Java, on Saturday morning.

Search and rescue teams were looking for missing people but heavy rain yesterday afternoon forced them to stop, the national disaster agency spokesman said.

"The challenge is that the road to the disaster zone is very narrow... and there are many cars now because people want to watch, so they interrupt or hinder the mobility of the team," spokesman Sutopo Purno Nugroho said.

Villagers were warned about potential landslides two weeks ago and evacuated the area at night, but many of them returned the next morning.

Many of the missing people were working on ginger farms when the landslide struck. - AFP