Survivors found as death toll from flash flood rises

Survivors found as death toll from flash flood rises

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Bahorok, North Sumatra

More than 100 people, dozens of them foreign tourists, were found
alive on Tuesday, as the death toll from the devastating flash
flood in North Sumatra continued to climb.

Another 11 bodies were recovered Tuesday, bringing the number
of dead to 103, local officials said. It is believed that at
least 86 other people are missing, feared dead after a flash
flood struck the popular resort town of Bukit Lawang.

The figures were released the joint disaster handling
task force.

However, data released by North Sumatra Governor Tengku Rizal
Nurdin put the death toll at 86 people, mostly women.

Rizal said the conflicting figures occurred as some victims
were taken by their families and relatives without being reported
to local authorities.

Those rescued alive had been trapped for more than 24 hours on
the opposite bank of the Bahorok river, which burst its banks and
swept away hundreds of homes and tourist cottages on Sunday
night.

They were rescued one by one using a climbing harness and a
rope bound. Rescue workers pulled the rope to help the victims
cross the 30-meter wide and swollen river.

Americans Tyson Murphy, 27, and Tommy Connelly, 26, both from
California, were among the survivors. They said they climbed
trees to escape the flood, clinging to the trees for 90 minutes.

When the waters subsided, "we each kissed our respective trees
and took a branch with us," Connelly was quoted by AP as saying.

"It's one of those things you think will never happen to you,"
said Murphy, of Laguna Beach, sporting dreadlocks and a Bob
Marley T-shirt. "I just said a couple of prayers."

Among the missing are three foreigners, identified only as 18-
year old Limai from China, Lister from Germany and Mathi Lola,
60, from the Netherlands.

Five of those killed in the disaster were foreign tourists --
two Americans, one Austrian, one Singaporean and one German.

Governor Rizal said the search for more survivors would
continue for two weeks from Monday.

The rescue efforts involved Army and Air Force soldiers,
police, Indonesian Red Cross volunteers, other government
officials and local residents. They were assisted by heavy
equipment like bulldozers and excavators.

The rescuers also used chainsaws to clear huge logs to remove
motorbikes, cars and other debris.

Police dogs were brought in to sniff for bodies.

The flood hit the resort town as people slept. The surging
floodwaters carried hundreds of logs washed away from the nearby
Gunung Leuser national park.

The logs smashed into scores of houses, many of them tin-
roofed bamboo structures, as well as resort cottages on the
riverbank.

"We strongly believe that in the upstream of the river, there
was a dam created naturally as a result of logs that had piled
up," Rizal said.

"The heavy rains caused the log dam to burst out and wash down
other huge logs along the riverbanks. This made a disaster as it
swept away homes," Rizal said.

He claimed the logs were the results of illegal logging in
Karo regency, North Sumatra, and southeast part of neighboring
Aceh province.

"We will investigate to find those involved in the illegal
logging in the Leuser park areas," the governor claimed.

Echoing his remark, North Sumatra Police chief Insp. Gen. Edy
Sunarno vowed to maximize efforts to uncover those behind the
rampant illegal logging in the park and take them to justice.

Government and military officials have widely been accused of
profiting from the illegal logging around the country but no
concrete action has been taken against them, despite frequent
political rhetoric.

Local environmental activist Aljuhri said his United People's
Forum to Save Forest had found thousands of huge sawn logs that
were to be transported through a new road created under the
controversial Ladia Galaska project from within the Leuser park.

"We have long protested the road project because it will be
very dangerous to the sustainable ecosystem in Leuser. The
logging mafia will use the road to transport their stolen logs.
But our protest was ignored," he added.

Bahorok is on the eastern fringes of the park. It is the home
to a famed orangutan rehabilitation center, which is popular with
tourists who also go trekking and white-water rafting.

Dozens of orangutans in the reserve, located a kilometer up
the valley from the river, appeared to have been unaffected by
the disaster despite the devastation, officials said.