AGAM, Indonesia: Improved weather on Saturday helped rescuers on Indonesia’s Sumatra island recover more bodies as they struggled to reach several areas that were hit by landslides and flash floods that left more than 300 dead and scores missing.
Parts of Sumatra, known for its lush rainforests, volcanoes and mountain ranges, were cut off by damaged roads and downed communications lines, and relied on transport aircraft to deliver aid supplies. Rescue efforts were also hampered by a lack of heavy equipment.
Monsoon rains over the past week caused rivers to burst their banks. The deluge tore through mountainside village, swept away people and submerged thousands of houses and buildings in the three provinces of North Sumatra, West Sumatra and Aceh.
The death toll in North Sumatra rose to 166, while 90 people died in West Sumatra. Rescuers also retrieved 47 bodies in Aceh, said Suharyanto, head of the National Disaster Management Agency. About 59,660 displaced families fled to temporary government shelters.
Authorities used cloud seeding, which involves dispersing particles into clouds to create precipitation, to redirect rainfall away from the areas where search and rescue efforts were ongoing, said Suharyanto, who goes by a single name like many Indonesians.
In the Agam district in West Sumatra province, nearly 80 people were missing in three villages, buried under tons of mud and rocks. There was a desperate need for heavy equipment to reach possible survivors. Relatives wailed as they watched rescuers pull bodies from a buried house in Salareh Aia village.
Images also showed massive piles of logs washed ashore on West Sumatra’s Air Tawar Beach, sparking public concern over possible illegal logging that may have contributed to the disaster.
In Aceh province, on the northern tip of Sumatra, authorities had difficulty deploying tractors and other heavy equipment. Hundreds of police, soldiers and residents dug through the debris with bare hands, shovels and hoes as heavy rain pounded the region.
“The death toll is believed to be increasing, since many bodies are still missing, while many have not been reached,” said Suharyanto, the head of the government’s disaster relief agency, who like many Indonesians only uses one name.
TV reports showed two rescuers battling strong currents in a small rubber boat, moving toward a man clinging to a coconut tree.
“There are many challenges,” Aceh Gov. Muzakir Manaf said after declaring a state of emergency until Dec. 11 to address the disaster. “We have to do many things soon, but conditions do not allow us to do so.”
Local media said that flash floods in Bireuen district in Aceh collapsed nine bridges, paralyze two-way transportation from North Sumatra’s Medan city to Banda Aceh, and forced residents to cross the river from village to village by boat.
It was the latest natural disaster to hit Indonesia, which is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.
Seasonal rains frequently cause flooding and landslides in Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains.
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Indonesian rescuers search for survivors as the death toll from floods and landslides tops 300
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Indonesian rescuers search for survivors as the death toll from floods and landslides tops 300
- The death toll in North Sumatra rose to 166, while 90 people died in West Sumatra
- In the Agam district in West Sumatra province, nearly 80 people were missing in three villages
Trump says he doesn’t know if aliens are real but directs government to release files on UFOs
- Former President Obama recently suggested in a podcast interview that aliens were real
- Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump suggested this week that the president was ready to speak about it
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Thursday that he’s directing the Pentagon and other government agencies to identify and release files related to extraterrestrials and UFOs because of “tremendous interest.”
Trump made the announcement in a social media post hours after he accused former President Barack Obama of disclosing “classified information” when Obama recently suggested in a podcast interview that aliens were real.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, “I don’t know if they’re real or not,” and said of Obama, “I may get him out of trouble by declassifying.”
In a post on his social media platform Thursday night, Trump said he was directing government agencies to release files related “to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters.”
Obama, who made his comments in a podcast appearance over the weekend, later clarified that he had not seen evidence that aliens “have made contact with us,” but said, “statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there.”
Trump told reporters Thursday that when it came to the prospect of extraterrestrial visitors: “I don’t have an opinion on it. I never talk about it. A lot of people do. A lot of people believe it.”
Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump suggested this week that he was ready to speak about it, however, when she said on a podcast that the president had a speech prepared to deliver on aliens that he would give at the “right time.”
That was news to the White House. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded with a laugh when she was asked about it Wednesday and told reporters, “A speech on aliens would be news to me.”
Public interest in unidentified flying objects and the possibility of the government hiding secrets of extraterrestrial life re-emerged in the public consciousness after a group of former Pentagon and government officials leaked Navy videos of unknown objects to The New York Times and Politico in 2017. The renewed scrutiny prompted Congress to hold the first hearings on UFOs in 50 years in May 2022, though officials said that the objects, which appeared to be green triangles floating above a Navy ship, were likely drones.
Since then the Pentagon has promised more transparency on the topic. In July 2022 it created the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, which was intended to be a central place to collect reports of all military UFO encounters, taking over from a department task force.
In 2023, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the head of AARO at the time, told reporters he didn’t have any evidence “of any program having ever existed as a to do any sort of reverse engineering of any sort of extraterrestrial (unidentified aerial phenomena).”
The information that has been made public shows that the vast majority of UFO reports made by the military go unsolved but the ones that are identified are largely benign in nature.
An 18-page unclassified report submitted to Congress in June 2024 said service members had made 485 reports of unidentified phenomena in the past year but 118 cases were found to be “prosaic objects such as various types of balloons, birds, and unmanned aerial systems.”
“It is important to underscore that, to date, AARO has discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology,” the report stressed.
Trump made the announcement in a social media post hours after he accused former President Barack Obama of disclosing “classified information” when Obama recently suggested in a podcast interview that aliens were real.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, “I don’t know if they’re real or not,” and said of Obama, “I may get him out of trouble by declassifying.”
In a post on his social media platform Thursday night, Trump said he was directing government agencies to release files related “to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters.”
Obama, who made his comments in a podcast appearance over the weekend, later clarified that he had not seen evidence that aliens “have made contact with us,” but said, “statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there.”
Trump told reporters Thursday that when it came to the prospect of extraterrestrial visitors: “I don’t have an opinion on it. I never talk about it. A lot of people do. A lot of people believe it.”
Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump suggested this week that he was ready to speak about it, however, when she said on a podcast that the president had a speech prepared to deliver on aliens that he would give at the “right time.”
That was news to the White House. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded with a laugh when she was asked about it Wednesday and told reporters, “A speech on aliens would be news to me.”
Public interest in unidentified flying objects and the possibility of the government hiding secrets of extraterrestrial life re-emerged in the public consciousness after a group of former Pentagon and government officials leaked Navy videos of unknown objects to The New York Times and Politico in 2017. The renewed scrutiny prompted Congress to hold the first hearings on UFOs in 50 years in May 2022, though officials said that the objects, which appeared to be green triangles floating above a Navy ship, were likely drones.
Since then the Pentagon has promised more transparency on the topic. In July 2022 it created the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, which was intended to be a central place to collect reports of all military UFO encounters, taking over from a department task force.
In 2023, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the head of AARO at the time, told reporters he didn’t have any evidence “of any program having ever existed as a to do any sort of reverse engineering of any sort of extraterrestrial (unidentified aerial phenomena).”
The information that has been made public shows that the vast majority of UFO reports made by the military go unsolved but the ones that are identified are largely benign in nature.
An 18-page unclassified report submitted to Congress in June 2024 said service members had made 485 reports of unidentified phenomena in the past year but 118 cases were found to be “prosaic objects such as various types of balloons, birds, and unmanned aerial systems.”
“It is important to underscore that, to date, AARO has discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology,” the report stressed.
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