Scenes of severe flooding in the eastern Indonesian province of West Papua
More than 100 people are now known to have died in flooding in the eastern Indonesian province of West Papua.
Scores more are still missing in Teluk Wondama district after flash floods and landslides that were triggered when a river burst its banks.
Hundreds of people have been injured and more than 5,000 are being housed in tents set up in emergency camps.
The National Search and Rescue Agency and military have sent reinforcements to help deal with the disaster.
The sudden flooding on Monday caught residents by surprise, officials said, contributing to the high death toll.
The local airport has now reopened and roads have been largely cleared of debris, which is helping to speed up aid deliveries to the area, reports say.
Navy warships had previously been used to carry tents, medical supplies and food to the disaster zone.
Thousands of buildings, roads and bridges in five villages have been damaged or destroyed.
The head of the the provincial relief agency, Dortheis Sawaki, said 104 bodies had been recovered, but many more people were missing and the death toll was expected to rise.
"It's a tragedy. The smell of rotting corpses is everywhere. Power is down. There's no clean water," she was quoted by AP as saying.
Many parts of the country had been badly hit by heavy rains, winds and high waves this year, meteorologists said.
Send your pictures and videos to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or text them to 61124 (UK) or 0044 7725 100 100 (International). If you have a large file you can upload here.
At no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe any laws. In most cases a selection of your comments will be published, displaying your name as you provide it and location unless you state otherwise. But your contact details will never be published.
This article is from the BBC News website. � British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
No comments:
Post a Comment