Rescuers Search for Dozens Buried in Indonesia Landslide

In this photo released by the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency (BASARNAS), rescuers prepare to head out to the site of a landslide in Suwawa on Sulawesi Island, Indonesia, Monday, July 8, 2024. (BASARNAS via AP)

Rescue workers searched for dozens of missing people Tuesday, digging through tons of mud and the rubble left by a landslide that hit an unauthorized traditional gold mining area on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island and killed at least 23 people.
More than 100 villagers were digging for grains of gold Sunday in the remote and hilly village of Bone Bolango when tons of mud plunged down the surrounding hills and buried their makeshift camps, said Heriyanto, head of the provincial Search and Rescue Office.
According to data released Tuesday by his office, some 66 villagers managed to escape from landslide, about 23 people were pulled out alive by rescuers, including 18 injured, and 23 bodies were recovered, including three women and a 4-year-old boy. Some 35 others are missing, it said.
National Disaster Management Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said torrential rains that have pounded the mountainous district since Saturday triggered the landslide and broke an embankment, causing floods up to the roofs of houses in five villages in Bone Bolango, which is part of a mountainous district in Gorontalo province. Nearly 300 houses were affected and more than 1,000 people fled for safety, The Associated Press reported.
Authorities deployed more than 200 rescuers, including police and military personnel, with heavy equipment to search for the dead and missing in a rescue operation that has been hampered by heavy rains, unstable soil, and the rugged, forested terrain, said Afifuddin Ilahude, a local rescue official.
“With many missing and some remote areas still unreachable, the death toll was likely to rise,” Ilahude said, adding that sniffer dogs were also being mobilized in the search.
Videos released by the National Search and Rescue Agency show rescue personnel using farm tools and sometimes their bare hands, pulling a mud-caked body from the thick mud before placing it in a black bag to take away for burial.