Heavy rains hampered the search on Friday for victims of a landslip on the Indonesian island of Java as authorities raised the death toll to seven.
The chief of the disaster mitigation agency in Brebes, Eko Andalas, said a body was found on Friday and one of the people injured in the disaster had died in a hospital.
The search involving more than 500 rescuers including police, volunteers and soldiers was halted due to heavy rains.
They heard a sudden roar
Farmers were working in their rice paddies in Central Java’s Brebes district Thursday morning when the soggy hillside above them collapsed under the weight of torrential rains.
Survivors described a sudden roar as the landslip was unleashed, sweeping trees and everything else in its path toward the terraced rice fields below.
Seasonal rains cause widespread flooding and landslips across much of Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands. Millions of people live in mountainous regions and on flood plains.
Degradation of forest land a factor
Degradation of land by conversion of it from natural forest to pulp wood and palm oil plantations can also be a factor in landslips.
But at a news conference in Jakarta, National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the landslip in Brebes was purely a natural disaster and not due to the hillside being part of a planation forest.
“It was caused by land movement following continuing torrential rain in the past two weeks,” he said.
The steep slopes meant there was high potential for ground movement in wet conditions, Mr. Nugroho said.
