By DPA
Jakarta : More than 100 people have been feared killed as flash floods swept through Indonesia’s densely populated Java Island.
Roads were cut off by floodwaters and mud, making it impossible for heavy equipment to reach the affected area, said Gunawan, a local Red Cross official in the worst-hit district of Karanganyar in Central Java province.
Dozens of people were missing after heavy downpours caused flooding and a series of landslides Wednesday in Central and East Java provinces.
In Karanganyar, two more people were found dead Thursday morning after rescue workers resumed their search at daybreak, said Gunawan.
The official said at least 30 people remained missing there and were believed dead after being buried alive under tonnes of mud and rocks for more than 24 hours.
Heru Pratama, head of the local disaster-coordinating agency, said the two additional victims brought the number of bodies recovered to 38 but had different figures for the missing at 27.
Search operations were also under way in the nearby district of Wonogiri, where seven people were missing and feared dead when landslides hit their homes. Ten bodies had already been recovered there.
In the East Java district of Madiun, about 20 people were missing after a bridge collapsed, the Jakarta-based private radio station Elshinta reported.
In the Central Java city of Solo, more than 26,000 people were moved to temporary shelters in buildings or tents set up by emergency response teams after the Bengawan Solo River burst its banks, inundating thousands of homes after hours of non-stop downpours.
Days of torrential rains caused rivers across Java and other Indonesian islands to overrun their banks, flooding tens of thousands of homes, destroying dozens of bridges and cutting off land links to a number of towns in Central and East Java, the state-run Antara News Agency reported.
Government officials and residents said it was the worst flash flood in 40 years. In the mid-1960s, thousands of homes were swept away by floods and claimed the lives of scores of people.
The disaster struck as Indonesia marked the third anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed at least 250,000 people Dec 26, 2004. Over 170,000 were killed alone in Indonesia’s Aceh province at the northern end of Sumatra island.
In December last year, more than 100 people were killed and over 200,000 were forced to flee their homes because of floods and landslides in northern Sumatra.