[Kabar-indonesia] Death Toll Rises to 188 in Sulawesi Floods, Landslides [incl: Deforestation]

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

also: JP: Death toll tops 150 in Sulawesi disaster 

Landslides, floods kill 188 in Indonesia's Sulawesi

JAKARTA, June 22 (Reuters) - The death toll from landslides and floods on 
Indonesia's eastern Sulawesi island this week has reached 188, and another 
145 people are missing, an official said on Thursday. 

A search-and-rescue operation has been underway in South Sulawesi province 
after two days of heavy rain at the beginning of the week. Sinjai regency was 
the worst-hit area after flooding early on Tuesday, police and disaster 
officials say. 

"The total dead are 188. Sinjai has 174 of the deaths. The total number of 
missing people is 145," Moersen Buana of the disaster task force told Reuters by 
telephone from provincial capital, Makassar, about 1,400 km (870 miles) east 
of Jakarta. 

The Indonesian military, police, and civilian search and rescue teams have 
been scouring the affected areas, seeking to recover bodies and digging into 
piles of 
mud from landslides to look for survivors. 

Torrential rains and landslides are regular features of tropical Indonesia. 

Rampant deforestation often adds to the ease with which hillsides are 
saturated 
and collapse as well as to flooding, since the lack of vegetation means less 
ground water is retained, environmentalists say. 
 
Sulawesi is resource-rich, with numerous mining operations, but those are far 
from the affected areas, a mines ministry official said on Wednesday. 

"The landslide is in the south where there is no mining operation. Mining 
operations in other areas have no problem," M.S. Marpaung, director of mineral 
resources in 
the mines and energy ministry, told Reuters. 

The central government has sent blankets, medicines and sarongs for the 
affected people of Sulawesi, and instructed local officials to help people move to 
safer areas. 
     
------------------------------------------

The Jakarta Post
Thursday, June 22, 2006

Death toll tops 150 in Sulawesi disaster 

Andi Hajramurni and Tony Hotland, 
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, Sinjai

photo: Seeking Signs of Life:  Members of police and military units search 
Wednesday for survivors of flash floods that flattened homes and killed at least 
114 people in Bringere, Sinjai regency, South Sulawesi. (JP/Andi Hajramurni) 

Rohim rushed to the hospital gate in Sinjai as the whirring of ambulance 
sirens signaled the arrival of more victims of landslides and flash floods that 
struck South Sulawesi early Tuesday.

He was to be disappointed every time Wednesday, his hope of finding his 
family fading as the day dragged on officials said at least 150 people were killed 
and 120 missing. 

The 36-year-old was asleep with Rohani and their sons, Fahmi, 4, and Farid, 
2, when a flash flood smashed through their home at 2 a.m. after two days of 
torrential rains. 

"The strong current swept away our house and my whole family. We were 
separated and I don't know what happened to them," he said at a local hospital. "I 
will stay here until I can find them, dead or alive." 

He grabbed hold of a plank as he was carried out to sea. Six hours later, a 
fisherman picked him up near Sembilan island, 30 kilometers from his home. 

Rohim was among hundreds of relatives of the missing who crowded hospitals 
and emergency centers in the five devastated regencies of Sinjai, Bantaeng, 
Bone, Bulukumba and Jeneponto. 

Sinjai, about 240 kilometers south of the provincial capital city Makassar, 
took the brunt of the catastrophe. The disaster mitigation coordination post 
said 145 were confirmed dead -- either drowned in the floods or buried under 
their collapsed houses -- and 120 were missing. 

In other regencies, at least five fatalities were reported. 

A total of 10 rescue teams, comprised of volunteers as well as members of the 
military and police, continued searching for the missing, with their focus on 
rivers and riverbanks as well as coastal areas. 

They had yet to reach several affected districts, including Central Sinjai 
district, where debris made a 20-kilometer stretch of road impassable. 

"We are overwhelmed by the bodies here," Bachtiar, head of a public health 
center in Sinjai, told AP. "We need help, especially body bags." 

Speaking before a Cabinet meeting at the presidential office Wednesday, 
Social Affairs Minister Bachtiar Chamsyah said the government had sent relief 
assistance, including 100 tons of rice, clothes, blanket and medicine, to the 
affected regencies. 

Bachtiar blamed the disaster on environmental degradation caused by clearing 
of forest areas and the construction of residences by rivers. 

Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said her office in Jakarta had assigned 
two officials to the area to assess the survivors' needs. "We have also sent 
200 body bags," she said. 

In parts of Sinjai regency, the flood had started to subside Wednesday, with 
residents returning home to clean their homes of debris but most businesses 
remaining closed. 

------------------------------------------
Joyo Indonesia News Service
------------------------------------------