Rescue Teams Continue Search for 26 Missing in East Java Landslide
Jakarta. Rescue teams are continuing to search for 26 people still missing after a landslide hit Tangkil, a village in Ponorogo, East Java, on Saturday morning (01/04), National Disaster Mitigation Agency BNPB said on Monday.
The landslide buried at least 23 homes under two meters of debris in an area about 800-square-meter big.
Rescue teams numbering 1,655 personnel — made up of members of the BNPB, the Indonesian Military, the National Police, the Disaster Response Team (Tagana), the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas), the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI), local agencies and volunteers — are hard at work searching through the rubble to find the missing victims.
A total of 128 residents from 35 families in the village were either injured or buried by Saturday's landslide. Around 100 people managed to escape before mud buried their homes.
As of Monday morning, the rescue teams have only managed to retrieve two bodies from the muddy rubble.
The Ponorogo district has been declared a disaster area for the next two weeks starting on Sunday.
At least 300 people have been relocated to temporary shelters or homes of nearby relatives and friends.
"We have asked the local administration to open up a new area for relocation. The district head has already approved the idea, but we still have to make sure the area is safe," BNPB Head Willem Rampangilei said on Sunday.
BNPB has provided Rp 500 million for the Ponorogo district administration to handle disaster recovery efforts in the area. At least seven hydraulic excavators have been deployed in Tangkil to move mud and debris and help find the 26 victims still missing.
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