Hope fades for finding dump slide survivors
Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Rescuers continued sifting through shattered houses on Tuesday with little hope of finding more survivors of the massive landslide that left 48 people dead and 93 others missing.
The mountains of garbage from Leuwigajah dump site in south Cimahi collapsed on Monday, flattening 70 houses in Cilimus hamlet in East Batujajar, Bandung regency and Pojok hamlet in Leuwigajah, Cimahi.
As of 6 p.m. on Tuesday, the time when rescue work was temporarily stopped, 48 bodies had been recovered while 93 more were still missing, presumed dead. The search will continue on Wednesday morning.
TB Heri, the person responsible for recording the number of victims at the Red Cross post near the Al Hidayah mosque in Cilimus, said that 43 of the dead were Cilimus residents, while the remaining five were from Pojok hamlet.
Bandung Regent Obar Sobarna said the number of surviving residents stood at 223 people.
"Some of them are now staying with their relatives and around 86 are living in a shelter," Obar told Coordinating Minister of People's Welfare Alwi Shihab and Minister of Social Services Bachtiar Chamsyah on Tuesday.
The ministers handed over a donation of Rp 175 million (US$18,800), as well as donations worth Rp 4 million each to families of the dead victims.
A unexpected disturbance took place when a man jumped from the crowd and managed to grab the collar of Alwi's T-shirt, yelling "over 100 people dead, where's your responsibility!". The man was taken away by police.
Another victim, 40-year-old Diah, yelled out that the disaster happened because of negligence as "the government did not respond to the relocation (plan)".
Awan Gumelar, director of Bandung's sanitation company PD Kebersihan, admitted it had once promised to relocate 114 families in two villages in response to their complaints of air and water pollution, as well as fear of landslide. "But, we just didn't have the money," he said.
At a meeting on Tuesday on waste management with West Java Governor Danny Setiawan, which was attended by Cimahi Mayor Itoc Tochya, Bandung Mayor Dada Rosada and Bandung Deputy Regent Eliyadi, the cause of the disaster was not on the agenda.
"The disaster happened, we take it as a lesson. Now it's time to think of the victims' evacuation and how to deal with garbage problems in the coming two weeks since the dump site is closed," Danny said without giving further details.
The dump previously received around 5,000 tones of garbage daily from three areas.
Police Comr. Susiyanti said there was little chance any of those trapped under the mountain of garbage and earth would still be alive.
"It appears that all of them are buried and it is very likely that they are all dead," she told AFP. "The situation is still grave but we will continue rescue efforts while the weather still allows us to do so."
She added the dump was located on top of a hill above the homes and heavy rain had saturated the mountains of trash, causing the disaster.
A bomb-like explosion was allegedly heard by some residents prior to the landslide, according to former operational director of PD Kebersihan, Sumardjito, might have been caused by trapped methane gas produced by rotting garbage.
As rain started to fall again on Tuesday, there is fear of more landslides. Monday's landslide was the sixth since the dump started operating in 1992. The worst case was in 1994 when six houses were damaged, but it caused no casualties.