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.