North Sumatra provincial police spokesman Ferry Walintukan said that at least one resident died when mud and debris struck a main road on a tiny Nias island and at least two people were found dead after a landslide hit Pakpak Bharat district.
Images showed water cascading down rooftops as panicked residents scrambled for safety. In some areas, flash floods rose rapidly, transforming streets into raging torrents carrying tree trunks and debris.
Sibolga police chief Eddy Inganta said that emergency shelters have been set up and authorities urged residents in high-risk zones to evacuate immediately, warning that continued rainfall could trigger more landslides after six landslides in the hilly city flattened 17 houses and a cafe.
“Bad weather, power blackouts and mudslides hampered the rescue operation,” Inganta said, adding that access remains limited as rescuers battle harsh conditions.
Tuesday’s disasters occurred on the same day that the National Disaster Mitigation Agency declared the official end of relief efforts in two areas of Indonesia’s main island of Java after 10 days of operations. More than 1,000 rescue workers had been deployed to search for people buried under landslides triggered by torrential rains that left 38 people dead in Central Java’s districts of Cilacap and Banjarnegara.
At least two people in Cilacap and 11 in Banjarnegara were still unaccounted for when the operations ended, as unstable ground, bad weather and the depth and extent of the landfill material pose a high safety risk to rescue teams and residents, the agency said.
Floods were also reported in many other provinces in the vast archipelago nation that is home to more than 280 million people, including in Aceh and West Sumatra, where hundreds of houses were flooded, many up to roofs and, main roads were blocked, the agency said.
Heavy seasonal rain from about October to March frequently causes flooding and landslides in Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile floodplains.
