JAKARTA: Flash floods and landslides struck Indonesia’s main Java island earlier this week, killing at least five people, the national disaster agency said Friday, as rescuers race to find seven others still missing.
Intense rains triggered flash floods and landslides in the Sukabumi district in West Java province on Tuesday, destroying at least 10 bridges and damaging hundreds of houses.
“As of Friday at 09:00 (0200 GMT), it was reported that the number of fatalities had increased to five people in total,” Abdul Muhari, the spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), said in a statement Friday.
“Aside from that, seven people remained missing.”
He added that efforts to build a temporary bridge to open access to affected areas are ongoing.
BNPB chief Suharyanto — who goes by one name — instructed rescuers to optimize the search operation for those missing, noting that rescuers have a seven-day “golden time” to find them.
“If necessary to use heavy equipment, please do so,” urged Suharyanto in a statement.
Indonesia has suffered from a string of recent extreme weather events, which experts say are made more likely by climate change.
Last month, heavy downpour triggered landslides and flash floods in Sumatra Island, killing at leaast 27 people.
In May, at least 67 people died after a mixture of ash, sand and pebbles carried down from the eruption of Mount Marapi in West Sumatra washed into residential areas, causing flash floods.
Five dead, seven missing in Indonesia floods, landslides
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Five dead, seven missing in Indonesia floods, landslides
- Intense rains triggered flash floods and landslides in the Sukabumi district
- BNPB chief Suharyanto instructed rescuers to optimize the search operation for those missing
UN chief calls on Israel to reverse NGOs ban in Gaza
- In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out
- Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end a ban on humanitarian agencies that provided aid in Gaza, saying he was “deeply concerned” at the development.
Guterres “calls for this measure to be reversed, stressing that international non-governmental organizations are indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work and that the suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire,” his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” he added.
Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials.
The ban includes Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has 1,200 staff members in the Palestinian territories — the majority of whom are in Gaza.
NGOs included in the ban have been ordered to cease their operations by March 1.
Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence.
Israel says the new regulation aims to prevent bodies it accuses of supporting terrorism from operating in the Palestinian territories.
On Thursday, 18 Israel-based left-wing NGOs denounced the decision to ban their international peers, saying “the new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality.”
A fragile ceasefire has been in place since October, following a deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data, leaving infrastructure decimated.
About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than two million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.
