Experts warn of more floods, landslides

Yuli Tri Suwarni and M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Bandung/Jakarta

Rampant deforestation and West Java's unstable ground make for a deadly mixture during the rainy season, leaving the province vulnerable to landslides, said a geologist a week after at least 30 people in the province died in landslides.

Weather experts are forecasting heavy rain in the coming weeks, and have warned that the southern parts of West and East Java and Sumatra are especially at risk for landslides and flooding.

"Landslides happen most often in the southern part of West Java," said Surono, a geologist at the Bandung-based Directorate of Volcanology and the Mitigation of Geological Disasters, on Saturday.

"Aside from Garut and Kuningan, other areas in the south that are also at risk include Tasikmalaya, Ciamis, Sukabumi, Changer and parts of several regencies in Bandung," he said.

Last Wednesday, about 20 people died and dozens of others remain missing after a river of mud buried at least 121 houses in the West Java town of Garut. Three days later, a landslide killed 10 people in the village of Cantilan in Kuningan, West Java.

On Sunday, a rescue team found the bodies of 9-year-old Ririn and 70-year-old Karsih in the village.

Officials said Ririn and Karsih were swept away by the mud, their bodies being discovered some 50 meters from the rest of the victims, who were buried under a river of mud that came from the slopes of Mt. Naga.

The landslide destroyed four houses, cut off electricity in the village and cut the road to Kuningan and the district towns of Selajambe and Subang.

In 2002, landslides across Indonesia killed 71 people, destroyed 965 homes, damaged 1.4 kilometers of road and devastated 120 hectares of farmland, according to data from the Directorate of Volcanology and the Mitigation of Geological Disasters.

Landslides occurred in Sumatra, Java and Papua in 2002, but of the 71 incidents 51 occurred in West Java. In 2001, 40 of 54 landslides took place in West Java.

The southern part of West Java is particularly vulnerable to landslides in part because of its unstable ground, said Surono.

Located between the moving Eurasian and Indo-Australian tectonic plates, the region is home to a chain of volcanoes, he said.

However, an even greater cause for the extreme risk of landslides in the province is the unfettered felling of trees, Surono said.

"The absence of tree and plants roots to intercept materials causes anything, now matter how small, to snowball into something big as it comes down from the mountain top," he said.

In West Java, deforestation has been acute. Official data shows that 50 percent of the province's 971,000 hectares of forests are in critical condition.

Surono said deforestation in West Java had worsened since 2001. He accused local administrations of neglecting environmental protection in their efforts to generate local revenue.

"Without immediate conservation efforts, disasters like landslides and flooding will continue to happen again and again," he warned.

But given the time it takes to replant deforested areas surrounding villages near mountains, hills and river banks, he suggested "there is no other way but to relocate the people".

Paulus Winarso from the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) agreed that environmental degradation was the main cause of flooding and landslides.

Paulus and the head of the climate modeling division at the National Aviation and Space Institute, Mezzak Rataq, said that over the coming weeks heavy rain would fall on western parts of Sumatra and southern parts of Java.

"Considering the heavy rainfall within the next one or two weeks, West Sumatra and regions in the southern part of Java -- stretching from west to east like Sukabumi, Garut and Mojokerto -- will be prone to landslides," Mezzak said on Saturday.

Several days of rain inundated the houses of some 2,300 families in the southern part of the West Java capital of Bandung.

In the same area, overflowing water from the Cibodas, Citarik and Cijelag rivers drenched thousands of hectares of paddy fields in the villages of Sukamulaya, Haur Pugur, Bojong Salam and Sangsiang.