Search for landslide victims halted

JAKARTA (JP): Rescue workers and local authorities agreed on Friday to call off the search for victims of a landslide, triggered by days of heavy rains, in the Sangihe Talaud regency of Sangir island in North Sulawesi.

"We decided to stop the search as the number of missing residents matches the number of fatalities and survivors that were found this week," chief of the Search and Rescue Agency (SAR) in Manado Soleman Moerad Kakoe told The Jakarta Post by phone.

Soleman, who had just arrived from the site of the incident on Friday, also said the death toll was 32 and not higher as reported earlier.

"During the search and rescue operation, data got mixed up. Actually some 20 people who were reported missing were already included in the list of fatalities," he explained.

Rescue workers managed to recover all but one body which was pinned under a huge rock, he said.

After failing to extricate the victim, a resident of Ulung Peliang village in Tamako regency, rescue workers prayed and decided to let the body rest there.

Soleman said since the villages were located at the foot of a hill, they were vulnerable to mud flows and landslides.

The landslide follows an earthquake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale that hit the regencies of Tamako, Tabukan Utara and Manganitu in the early hours of Sunday morning, destroying 40 houses and cutting off roads in several places.

Villages ravaged by the earthquake were Karatung II and Toloarane in Manganitu regency; Belengan and Ulung Peliang in Tamako regency; and Bangkitang in Tabukan regency. The affected area is only 15 kilometers from Tahuna port or 209 km from the port of Manado.(edt)