JAKARTA: Indonesian rescuers are struggling to reach survivors on Sumatra island after torrential rains unleashed flash floods and triggered landslides, killing dozens of people and displacing thousands of others, authorities said on Thursday.
Days of relentless rainfall caused rivers in North Sumatra province to overflow, sending waves of mud, rocks and uprooted trees through villages in at least nine regencies, with districts of Sibolga and Central Tapanuli among the hardest hit.
Communication lines were down in hundreds of sites across North Sumatra, according to the ministry of communications and digital affairs, while ongoing rescue and relief efforts were hampered as access to some districts remained cut off.
“With the floods and landslides in North Sumatra, chiefs in the affected regions have now declared a state of emergency,” Suharyanto, who heads the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, or BNPB, told reporters in Jakarta.
“(We will focus) first on opening access, there are roads linking Sibolga to Central Tapanuli and South Tapanuli that are still blocked … we will try to open (them) in one or two days.”
