173 feared dead in landslide

February 23, 2005

RESCUERS sifting through the debris of a garbage landslide in Indonesia admitted today that any of the more than 120 missing who had not suffocated or been crushed to death had probably died of heat exposure.

As the search went into its third day, officials said that the intense heat caused by decomposing refuse meant those trapped in their homes under tonnes of waste, soil and debris stood very little chance of survival.

"There cannot be any more survivors," search and rescue official Budi Hadiwiguno said. Military officials put the number of those feared dead at 173.

"We are not dealing with just soil and mud. The layer of waste is hot on the inside and most of the victims found yesterday had their skin peeled. It is as if they had been in an oven," he added.

The disaster struck in the early hours of Monday as people slept and buried up to 70 homes built in the shadow of a dumpsite at Cimahi, near the city of Bandung, about 200km south-east of Jakarta.

A local military official, Purwanto, said that 50 bodies had so far been recovered and that 108 residents were still listed as missing. In addition a further 15 scavengers had been reported missing.

No survivors have been pulled from the debris since Monday, when a 12-year-old boy was rescued alive from the fringes of the disaster area, some 12 hours after the catastrophe struck.

Steam was rising from the ground covered by the landslide, which Mr Hadiwiguno said had deposited a layer of soil and waste on average 7m deep, and the air was thick with the stench of waste and decay.

"If they had been some 1.5m under the waste, they could still be found alive on the second day, but on the third the possibility is almost non-existent."

"Most of the victims have been found in groups inside their houses. They were mostly caught by surprise by the swift slide of the garbage," which he said moved at an estimated 250 kilometres an hour and left a trail of devastation for up to 900m.

But still teams continued to pick through the rubble, with army and police teams painstakingly sifting by hand through mountains of garbage and debris as diggers cleared away tonnes of earth and waste.

Whole houses lay buried or part covered, with broken brick, crushed plasterboard and wooden beams like matchsticks spread over a wide area.

Hadiwiguno said that rescue teams would continue the search until Monday when they would reassess the situation and possibly continue for a further three days.

He said the fine compost-like composition of the soil was further hindering rescue efforts.

"The soil is hard to excavate because it has plenty of plastic material and other non degradable material in it."

"We have located the approximate locations of the clusters of houses and we will begin by digging around them and then we will begin the careful excavation."

Rescue efforts were further complicated by the threat of intermittent rain triggering further landslides, officials said.

Distraught relatives looked on.

Jeje, 32, a farmer, said his father, mother and younger brothers were among the missing. "I can't think clearly any more. I just hope that their bodies are found," he said.

The body of one woman had been pulled from the twisted wreckage of a home still clutching the lifeless body of a child in her arms, the state Antara news agency reported.

Heavy seasonal rains saturating the mountains of trash were believed to have caused the disaster, local Police Commissioner Susiyanti said.

SOURCE: Agencie France-Presse