JAKARTA, Indonesia: Torrential rains triggered flash floods and landslides on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, killing at least 27 people, including a dozen children at a school, officials said Saturday.
A flash flood with mud and debris from landslides struck Mandailing Natal district in North Sumatra province and smashed an Islamic school in Muara Saladi village, where 29 children were swept away on Friday afternoon, said local police chief Irsan SinuHajji.
He said rescuers retrieved the bodies of 11 children from mud and rubble hours later.
The National Disaster Mitigation Agency’s spokesman, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, said rescuers and villagers managed to rescue 17 other children and several teachers on Friday and pulled out the body of a child on Saturday near Aek Saladi river, close to the school.
A video obtained by The Associated Press showed relatives crying besides their loved ones at a health clinic where the bodies of the children were lying, covered with blankets.
Nugroho said two bodies were found early Saturday from a car washed away by floods in Mandailing Natal, where 17 houses collapsed and 12 were swept away. Hundreds of other homes were flooded up to 2 meters (7 feet) high, while landslides occurred in eight areas of the region.
Four villagers were killed after landslides hit 29 houses and flooded about 100 buildings in neighboring Sibolga district, Nugroho said.
He said flash floods also smashed several villages in West Sumatra province’s Tanah Datar district, killing five people, including two children, and leaving another missing. Landslides and flooding in the neighboring districts of Padang Pariaman and West Pasaman killed four villagers after 500 houses flooded and three bridges collapsed.
Both North and West Sumatra provinces declared a weeklong emergency relief period as hundreds of terrified survivors fled their hillside homes to safer ground, fearing more of the mountainside would collapse under continuing rain, Nugroho said, adding that dozens of injured people were rushed to nearby hospitals and clinics.
Seasonal downpours cause frequent landslides and floods each year in Indonesia, a chain of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains.
27 dead in floods, landslides on Indonesia’s Sumatra island
27 dead in floods, landslides on Indonesia’s Sumatra island
- Heavy downpours since Wednesday triggered flooding and landslides that hit several districts on Sumatra island
- The disaster has already killed at least 27 people, including a dozen children at a school
Bulgarians protest widespread graft and call for a fair election
- The latest developments are leaving the European Union member country without a budget for next year
- On Thursday, people insisted on fair and free elections rather than polls compromised by vote manipulation
SOFIA: Tens of thousands of people on Thursday filled the streets of Bulgaria’s capital and other major cities in the country, calling for a fair election and an independent judiciary able to effectively fight widespread corruption.
The demonstrations in Sofia and elsewhere came after last week’s protests sparked by the government’s budget plans for higher taxes and spending increases. The government later withdrew the contentious 2026 budget plan, but eventually bowed to people’s demands and stepped down.
The latest developments are leaving the European Union member country without a budget for next year and without a regular government, just before Bulgaria is set to join the eurozone.
Now, President Rumen Radev is expected to appoint a caretaker government and set the date for the next early vote — the eighth since 2021.
On Thursday, people insisted on fair and free elections rather than polls compromised by vote manipulation, vote-buying and falsification of election results as in the previous campaign.
At the core of the protesters’ frustrations is the role of Bulgarian politician and oligarch Delyan Peevski, who has been sanctioned by both the United States and the United Kingdom, and whose MRF New Beginning party backed the outgoing coalition led by the GERB party of former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov.
The Balkan country of 6.4 million people is due to make the switch from its national currency, the lev, to the euro on Jan. 1, to become the eurozone’s 21st member. Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007.
