 One dead, 28 missing in Indonesia landslide Jakarta (AFP) April 1, 2017 - At least one person was killed and 28 are feared buried after a landslide struck Indonesia, the national disaster agency said Saturday. A wall of mud that slammed onto houses from a hillside after heavy rainfall, damaging dozens of homes in Ponorogo district, East Java on Saturday morning. Seventeen people were injured and sent for treatment to a local hospital, the national disaster agency spokesman said as the military, police and volunteers worked to score the area for the missing. "We are still searching for 28 other missing people, but the search operation has ended for today. We will continue searching if the weather is good Sunday morning," national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purno Nugroho told AFP. Local people had evacuated the village after warnings from officials, staying elsewhere during the nights, but many had returned in the mornings to work on their farms harvesting ginger. Indonesia is often hit by landslides. Twelve people including three children died in a landslide on the holiday island of Bali last February. In September, almost thirty people died in devastating floods and landslides in Garut, West Java.
Snapshot of deadly mudslides in recent years
Snapshot of deadly mudslides in recent years Here is a snapshot of deadly incidents since 2010: - Colombia mudslides More than 150 people were killed and hundreds left injured or missing in southern Colombia after mudslides, driven by days of torrential rain, struck late Friday. The incident was the third of its kind in less than seven years. On May 18, 2015, 92 people were killed in Salgar, a mountain city 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the northwestern city of Medellin. On December 5, 2010, 45 people died in a Medellin suburb and 100 more were listed as missing. - Guatemala deaths - An October 2, 2015 mudslide following severe flooding buried more than 100 homes, leaving 280 people dead and 70 missing in the village of Santa Catarina Pinula, just outside Guatemala City, the capital. - Brazilian favelas - Landslides amid torrential rain swept more than 800 people to their deaths on January 12, 2011, in a mountainous area near Rio de Janeiro. On April 7, 2010, 200 people were listed as missing after another landslide at a favela in Niteroi, near Rio. Days earlier, 250 people died as torrential rain elsewhere in Rio state brought flooding and rockslides. - Afghanistan hit - Mud- and rockslides brought havoc on May 2, 2014, to the northeastern Afghan village of Aab Bareek in the Badakhshan region, leaving at least 350 people dead, according to UN estimates. - Uganda enveloped - Some 350 Ugandans were killed on March 1, 2010 when a torrent of mud devastated three villages in the eastern Mount Elgon region. - India monsoons - Monsoon downpours brought flooding and landslides on June 15, 2013, bringing death to 6,000 people in northern India, with Uttarakhand state worst affected. Three years earlier, on August 5, 2010, abnormally high rainfall in the Himalayan region of Ladakh led to huge mudslides which devastated the regional capital Leh and its environs. Some 200 people died with 400 more listed as missing.
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Mudslides killed at least 206 people and left hundreds injured or missing after destroying homes in southern Colombia, officials said Saturday.
They were the latest victims of floods that have struck the Pacific side of South America over recent months, also killing scores of people in Peru and Ecuador.
In the southwestern Colombian town of Mocoa, the surge swept away houses, bridges, vehicles and trees, leaving piles of wrecked timber and brown mud, army images from the area showed.
The mudslides struck late Friday after days of torrential rain in the Amazon basin area town of 40,000.
"The latest information we have is that there are 206 people confirmed dead, 202 injured, 220 missing, 17 neighborhoods hit hard," Colombian Red Cross chief Cesar Uruena told AFP.
President Juan Manuel Santos visited Mocoa, the capital of Putumayo department, on Saturday to supervise rescue efforts in the heavily forested region.
He declared a public health and safety emergency to speed up rescue and aid operations. He also expressed his condolences to victims' families.
- Nation in mourning -
Putumayo Governor Sorrel Aroca called the development "an unprecedented tragedy" for the area.
There are "hundreds of families we have not yet found and whole neighborhoods have disappeared," he told W Radio.
Carlos Ivan Marquez, director of the National Disaster Risk Management Unit, told AFP the mudslides were caused by the rise of the Mocoa River and tributaries.
The rivers flooded causing a "big avalanche," the army said in a statement.
Some 130 millimeters (5 inches) of rain fell Friday night, Santos said. "That means 30 percent of monthly rainfall fell last night, which precipitated a sudden rise of several rivers," he said.
He promised earlier on Twitter to "guarantee assistance to the victims of this tragedy, which has Colombians in mourning."
"Our prayers are with the victims and those affected," he added.
- Rescue efforts -
The authorities activated a crisis group including local officials, military personnel, police and rescuers to search for missing people and begin removing mountains of debris, Marquez said.
A thousand emergency personnel were helping the rescue effort. Mocoa was left without power or running water; there were reports of some looting in efforts to get water.
"There are lots of people in the streets, lots of people displaced and many houses have collapsed," retired Mocoa resident Hernando Rodriguez, 69, said by telephone.
"People do not know what to do... there were no preparations" for such a disaster, he said.
"We are just starting to realize what has hit us."
Several deadly landslides have struck Colombia in recent months.
A landslide in November killed nine people in the rural southwestern town of El Tambo, officials said at the time.
A landslide the month before killed 10 people in the north of the country.
Climate change can play a big role in the scale of natural disasters, such as this one, a senior UN official said.
"Climate change is generating dynamics and we see the tremendous results in terms of intensity, frequency and magnitude of these natural effects, as we have just seen in Mocoa," said Martin Santiago, UN chief for Colombia.
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