Indonesia flood death toll rises to 43 with 15 missing

Tanah Datar, Indonesia – AFP

The death toll from flash floods and cold lava flow from a volcano in western Indonesia over the weekend has risen to 43 with 15 more missing, officials said Monday.

Hours of heavy rain caused large volcanic rocks to roll down one of Indonesia’s most active volcanos into two districts on Sumatra island Saturday evening, while flooding inundated roads, homes and mosques.

“The death toll from cold lava flow flooding in West Sumatra province reached 43 people,” spokesman of the national disaster mitigation agency (BNPB) Abdul Muhari said in a statement on Monday.

Rescuers were still searching for 15 missing people in two districts — Agam and Tanah Datar — that were the worst hit by the floods and home to hundreds of thousands of people.

Residents said they heard rocks thundering down roads outside their homes when the heavy rains struck.

“My house was vibrating,” said Budi Rahmat, a 44-year-old farmer in Agam.

“The only thing I could think about was that I had to save my wife and kids.”

Abdul Malik, head of the local search and rescue agency in provincial capital Padang, also said the number of people killed had risen to 43 in a separate statement.

West Sumatra’s disaster mitigation agency had earlier put the death toll at 41.

Malik said Sunday that the bodies retrieved included two children — a three-year-old and an eight-year-old.

Ilham Wahab, a West Sumatra disaster mitigation agency official, encouraged “people to evacuate to relatives’ places, which are safer” than tent shelters in heavy rains.

“We are focused on first, searching and rescuing the victims, second, protecting the evacuees, protecting the vulnerable people,” he said.

Provincial Governor Mahyeldi Ansharullah told reporters on Monday that around 130 people had evacuated to an elementary school in Agam, while more than 2,000 people were evacuated to several places in Tanah Datar.

Roads in the districts were turned into rivers, with mosques and houses damaged.

Heavy rains inundated neighbourhoods with muddy flood waters and swept vehicles into a nearby river, while volcanic ash and large rocks rumbled down Mount Marapi.

Cold lava, also known as lahar, is volcanic material such as ash, sand and pebbles carried down a volcano’s slopes by rain.