Indonesia sends more rescuers as extreme weather hampers search after landslide

J AKARTA—More rescuers and heavy machinery will be sent to Indonesia’s disaster-hit Serasan Island to search for dozens still missing after a deadly landslide, a disaster official said on Tuesday. 

The landslide struck Monday in the remote Natuna region between Borneo and peninsular Malaysia.

Poor weather and downed communication lines have complicated rescue efforts on the island, which is home to about 8,000 people.

Pictures provided by Natuna's communication and information agency showed houses reduced to rubble, with fallen trees and torn roofs visible.

Body bags were lined up on top of a blue tarpaulin as officials gathered to pray for the victims.

Rescuers have managed to find 11 bodies so far, but villagers put the death toll at 15, according to Abdul Muhari, spokesperson for the national disaster mitigation agency (BNPB).

Another 47 people are still missing, while at least 1,200 people have had to seek shelter because of the disaster, he added.

"There are 82 search and rescue personnel on Serasan Island. Fifteen more officers from Jakarta will join the effort tomorrow," Muhari told AFP on Tuesday evening.

Heavy-duty vehicles, along with two helicopters, will also help the search and aid distribution efforts. 

WEATHER HAMPERS RESCUE

Heavy rain has forced intermittent pauses in the rescue operation.

"The rain intensity is still quite high in Serasan," Muhari said, adding that the downpours have been lashing the island since the end of last month.

"The team's safety is of utmost importance amid the high-intensity rain," he said. "We keep observing the weather, so as (it) improves, we will continue the search."

Rescuers were focusing their efforts along a stretch of road near a cliff where around 30 houses were reportedly buried by the landslide.

Muhari had earlier said that the agency was sending food and tents, as well as satellite communication equipment and two helicopters in a bid to establish communication lines and speed up aid.

Indonesia is prone to landslides during the rainy season, aggravated in some places by deforestation, and prolonged torrential rain has caused flooding in different areas of the archipelago nation.

Experts say the country's weather-related disasters are likely being made worse by climate change.

Floods further south in Banjar district, in the Indonesian part of Borneo, have inundated more than 17,000 houses and disrupted lives for a month.

Neighboring Malaysia has also been hit with torrential rains and vast floods. At least five people have died and nearly 41,000 were evacuated last week in several states of the country.

In 2020, the Indonesian capital Jakarta and nearby cities saw some of their deadliest floods in years after downpours triggered landslides.

At least 67 people died in that disaster.

Agence France-Presse

Rescuers hunt for missing as landslides, floods kill 10 in Japan

TOKYO, Japan - Rescuers worked by hand to clear debris from a landslide triggered by heavy rains in central Japan on Saturday, as the toll from the storms rose to 10 dead with a further three people reportedly missing.

Aerial footage showed emergency workers removing wreckage from two houses that were swept away in Chiba, southeast of Tokyo, just two weeks after a deadly typhoon barrelled through the area.

Nine people were killed by landslides and floods in the region, including two elderly men found dead in submerged cars, officials and news reports said.

A woman in her 40s was found dead near the coast in eastern Fukushima, according to a fire department official.

Police divers were deployed to search for those unaccounted for, with public broadcaster NHK putting the number of missing at three.

Thousands of people were forced to spend the night in Narita airport after train services were suspended, it added.

"Water was flowing in my garden like a river," a 75-year-old man told NHK. "Rain was heavier than during the typhoon."

Two weeks ago, Typhoon Hagibis slammed into the east coast of Japan, killing more than 80 people. Many river banks and levees that were breached during Hagibis have yet to be repaired.

The rescue effort received some relief when the Japan Meteorological Agency downgraded warnings of landslides and floods as rains eased on Saturday morning in many regions.

Non-mandatory evacuation orders were also lifted in many areas, although 1,800 people were still in shelters, NHK reported.

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9 killed as typhoon lashes South Korea

BUSAN, South Korea - At least 9 people were killed and several others missing after Typhoon Mitag lashed South Korea with heavy rains and strong winds, authorities said Thursday.

The storm hit southern parts of the country on Wednesday night, prompting flood warnings and triggering landslides in affected areas.

The death toll recorded from across the country have been confirmed dead as of Thursday afternoon, the Ministry of Interior and Safety said, but the toll was expected to rise with several people missing.

A woman in her 60s was found dead after her home was buried in a landslide in the southern port city of Busan and around 600 rescue workers were trying to locate three others believed to be trapped beneath the rubble.

Park Young-hak was inside his tool shed -- later buried in the landslide -- and said he escaped after hearing a loud "roar."

"When I ran out to see what it was the house next to me had already disappeared," Park told AFP.

More than 1,000 homes were damaged and over 1,500 people evacuated their houses in advance, the ministry said.

Mitag is the 18th typhoon this year and seventh to hit the Korean peninsula.

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More than 50 feared killed in landslide at Myanmar jade mine

More than 50 people were feared dead after a landslide in northern Myanmar engulfed jade miners while they were sleeping, local police said Tuesday, the latest deadly accident in a notoriously dangerous industry.

Dozens die each year in landslides caused by jade mining, a poorly regulated industry rife with corruption and sandwiched between the country's borders with China and India.

Local police described a freak accident in Kachin state on Monday night so big it created a huge "mud lake" that buried the miners as well as some 40 vehicles.

"Fifty-four people are missing in the mud," a duty officer from Hpakant township police station told AFP, asking not to be named.

"There's no way they (the missing) could have survived."

Only 2 bodies had been recovered so far.

The Ministry of Information confirmed the accident and number of missing, adding that the area was mined by Myanmar Thura Gems and Shwe Nagar Koe Kaung companies.

Myanmar Thura Gems director Hla Soe Oo told AFP by phone he was on his way to the site and had no further details. 

Local media shared images, unverified by AFP, that showed the walls of a mine stretching vertically a couple of hundred meters above a vast pool of mud, revealing only the tops of 2 yellow excavation vehicles.

Hundreds of onlookers gathered nearby, staring at the site and taking photos with their phones.

PRIZED IN CHINA 

The open jade mines in Kachin's Hpakant township have turned the remote area into a vast moonscape-like terrain.

Fatal landslides in the area are common with victims often from impoverished ethnic communities looking for scraps left behind by big firms.

A major collapse in November 2015 left more than 100 dead.

In July last year, the bodies of 23 landslide victims were recovered after a days-long search hampered by heavy monsoon rains.

The jade industry is largely driven by insatiable demand from neighboring China, where the translucent green gemstone has long been prized.

Watchdog Global Witness estimated that the industry was worth some $31 billion in 2014, although very little reaches state coffers.

Northern Myanmar's abundant natural resources -- including jade, timber, gold and amber -- help finance both sides of a decades-long civil war between ethnic Kachin insurgents and the military.

The fight to control the mines and the revenues they bring frequently traps local civilians in the middle.

A 17-year ceasefire broke down in 2011, and since then more than 100,000 people have been displaced by fighting -- some of them multiple times.

On coming to power in 2016, civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi promised to make the peace process with the country's myriad armed groups her top priority -- a pledge that has yet to yield significant results.

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Indonesia flood death toll rises to 89, dozens missing

SENTANI, Indonesia - At least 89 people are known to have died after flash floods and landslides tore through Indonesia's Papua region, with the toll expected to rise further as rescuers hunt for dozens still missing, the national disaster agency said Tuesday.

Scores have also been injured in the disaster, triggered by torrential rain on Saturday, with some 6,800 people evacuated to temporary shelters.

The military has taken up the grim task of putting mud-caked corpses into body bags, with the search hampered by mountains of debris, including rocks and fallen trees.

Seventy four people remain unaccounted for, while around 150 suffered broken bones, cuts, and other injuries.

"Many people are choosing to stay at shelters because they're still traumatized and scared of more flash floods, so some evacuation centers are packed," said national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.

The government has issued a 14-day state of emergency in Papua, which shares a border with independent Papua New Guinea on an island just north of Australia.

Flooding is common in Indonesia, especially during the rainy season, which runs from October to April.

In January, floods and landslides killed at least 70 people on Sulawesi island, while earlier this month hundreds in West Java province were forced to evacuate when torrential rains triggered severe flooding.

Meanwhile, 3 people were killed -- including 2 Malaysian tourists -- and some 182 were injured after an earthquake Sunday triggered a landslide on the Indonesian tourist island of Lombok, next to Bali.

Lombok was rocked by several earthquakes last summer, killing more than 500 people and leaving over 150,000 homeless.

Last September, the country was hit by an earthquake and tsunami in Palu on Sulawesi island which killed around 2,200 people. 

The Southeast Asian archipelago of some 17,000 islands is one of the most disaster-prone nations on Earth, straddling the Pacific Ring of Fire, where tectonic plates collide. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are common.

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Death toll from Japan's Hokkaido doubles to 16 - prime minister

TOKYO - The death toll from a powerful earthquake that rattled the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido doubled to at least 16, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Friday, with more than half the island's 5.3 million residents still without power.

The 6.7-magnitude quake, which hit before dawn on Thursday, triggered landslides that buried houses and paralyzed Hokkaido with widespread power and transport cuts.

The death toll had been put at eight overnight but NHK cited Abe in reporting the new total soon after he held an emergency meeting early on Friday.

Another 26 people were missing, disaster management authorities said.

The island, a tourist destination about the size of Austria known for its mountains, lakes and seafood, lost all power after the quake when Hokkaido Electric Power Co shut its fossil fuel-fired power plants as a precaution.

The utility had restored power to about 1.31 million of 2.95 million customers by early Friday, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said. It could take at least a week to restore power fully, Industry Minister Hiroshige Seko has said.

The quake was the second disaster to hit Japan this week alone after a summer during which the country has been battered by deadly typhoons, flooding and a record heat wave.

Kansai International Airport has been shut since Typhoon Jebi ripped through Osaka on Tuesday, although some domestic flights operated by Japan Airlines (JAL) and ANA's low-cost carrier Peach Aviation resumed on Friday, the carriers said.

At Hokkaido's main airport, New Chitose, JAL was preparing to restart some flights from around 11:00 a.m. (0200 GMT) on Friday, a spokesman said. ANA cancelled all morning flights but would resume operations as normal in the afternoon, a spokesman said.

JR Hokkaido planned to resume bullet train operations from midday. It was also trying to resume other train services on Friday afternoon, a spokesman said.

However, manufacturers were still being affected by power outages.

Toyota Motor Corp's Tomakomai factory, which makes transmissions and other parts, said operations remained suspended indefinitely until power was restored, a spokesman said.

Toppan Printing's operations at a plant in Chitose, which makes food packages, would remain suspended until it regained power, a spokesman said.

Cultural events were also affected, with a soccer friendly between Japan and Chile scheduled for Friday in Sapporo called off.

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Death toll rises to 5 as heavy rains continue to lash western Japan

The death toll from heavy rains rose to five with at least three others feared dead and 28 missing, as downpours continued lashing western Japan on Saturday.

Rescue crews expanded their search for people trapped, injured or dead, as heavy rainfall caused flooding and landslides in wider areas, in Hiroshima and Okayama prefectures in particular.

Emergency warnings were lifted by early Saturday in Fukuoka, Saga and Nagasaki but remain in five other prefectures including Hiroshima and Okayama.

Since the downpour began Thursday, the weather agency has forecast record amounts of rain through Sunday, warning of flooding, mudslides and lightning strikes.

The agency warned of potential heavy rain of up to 80 millimeters per hour in some areas. In the 24-hour period through 6 a.m. on Sunday, 300 millimeters of rain is forecast in the Shikoku and northern Kyushu regions, 250 mm in the southern Kyushu and Tokai regions, and 200 mm in the Chugoku, Kinki and Hokuriku regions.

==Kyodo

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Five dead, 15 missing in Indonesia landslide

JAKARTA, Indonesia - At least five people have been killed and 15 are still missing after a landslide cascaded down the terraced slopes of a rice field on the Indonesian island of Java on Thursday, officials said.

The victims, farmers tending their crops in Brebes district, Central Java, were buried under an avalanche of mud and rock around 8:00 am (0100 GMT).

"The landslide buried the farmers working in their rice fields," disaster mitigation agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a statement.

The incident followed several days of heavy rain in the mountainous area, about seven hours east of the capital Jakarta.

Another 14 farmers were found with light injuries and have been taken to a nearby medical center for treatment.

Rescuers including the army, police and local volunteers are digging through debris to search for survivors, the agency said.

Residents have been forbidden from entering the area due to fears of further landslides.

"The soil is unstable, if it's raining, it could be dangerous," local sub-district head Apriyanto Sudarmoko told a national TV station.

"We also ask residents living near the site to vacate their homes until it’s safe."

Landslides are common in Indonesia, especially during wet season between October and April, when rain lashes the country.

Eight miners were killed on the slopes of Mount Merapi, an active volcano near the city of Jogjakarta, in December last year.

A month earlier at least 11 people died in heavy flooding and landslides in Pacitan, East Java.

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At least 90 dead in landslide at Myanmar jade mine

KACHIN, Myanmar - At least 90 people have died in a huge landslide in a remote jade mining area of northern Myanmar, officials said Sunday, as search teams continued to find bodies in one of the deadliest disasters to strike the country's shadowy jade industry.

"We found 79 dead bodies on November 21 (and) 11 today so the total so far is 90," said Nilar Myint, an official from the local administrative authorities in Hpakant, northern Kachin state, adding that the rescue operation was ongoing.

Rescuers were thought to still be battling to dig through the mountains of loose rubble at the site on Sunday, in the latest deadly accident to affect Myanmar's secretive multi-billion dollar jade industry in war-torn Kachin.

Those killed were thought to have been scavenging through a mountain of waste rubble dumped by mechanical diggers used by the mining firms in the area to extract Myanmar's most valuable precious stone.

Landslides are a common hazard in the area as people living off the industry's waste pick their way across perilous mounds, driven by the hope that they might find a chunk of jade worth thousands of dollars.

Scores have been killed this year alone as local people say the mining firms, many of which are linked to the country's junta-era military elite, scale up their operations in Kachin.

Myanmar is the source of virtually all of the world's finest jadeite, an almost translucent green stone that is prized above almost all other materials in neighboring China.

In an October report, advocacy group Global Witness estimated that the value of jade produced in 2014 alone was $31 billion, the equivalent of nearly half the country's GDP.

But that figure is around 10 times the official $3.4 billion sales of the precious stone last year, in an industry that has long been shrouded in secrecy with much of the best jade thought to be smuggled directly to China.

Local people in Hpakant complain of a litany of abuses associated with the mining industry, including the frequency of accidents and land confiscations.

The area has been turned into a moonscape of environmental destruction as huge diggers gouge the earth looking for jade.
Itinerant miners are drawn from all parts of Myanmar by the promise of riches and become easy prey for drug addiction in Hpakant, where heroin and methamphetamine are cheaply available on the streets.

"Industrial-scale mining by big companies controlled by military families and companies, cronies and drug lords has made Hpakant a dystopian wasteland where locals are literally having the ground cut from under their feet," said Mike Davis of Global Witness, calling for firms to be held accountable for accidents.

The group wants the jade industry, which has long been the subject of United States sanctions, to be part of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global scheme designed to increase transparency around natural resource management.

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