Two perish, 33 missing after landslide in Gowa

Andi Hajramurni, The Jakarta Post, Gowa, South Sulawesi

Two people died and 33 others are missing after a landslide hit Manimbahoi subdistrict in Gowa regency, South Sulawesi province, on Friday morning.

The two were named as Sadding Limpo and Daeng Rumpa, both residents of Manimbahoi subdistrict, Moncong Tinggi district.

Muhammad Guntur, the head of the subdistrict, said on late Friday that he initially heard a loud noise at 11.30 a.m. It appeared to came from near the foot of Bawakaraeng mountain.

Another loud noise was heard at about 1 p.m, which prompted him and other subdistrict officials to rush to the scene.

There they found nine homes and an empty elementary school buried by mud and rocks. "We concluded that the place had been hit by a landslide," Guntur told reporters late on Friday in the subdistrict hall, a few kilometers from the place where the incident happened. He said that the landslide had been caused by the torrential rain that had been falling in the area since last week.

He said that the two had not been quick enough to get out of their houses when the landslide hit. "They were over 60," Guntur said.

He said a search and rescue team from Hasanuddin University in Makassar had arrived in the subdistrict late on Friday, and would try to find the 33 missing people on Saturday.

Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province, is located some 80 kilometers north of the scene.

Guntur said that more than 100 residents of the subdistrict had been evacuated to safety for fear of further landslides in the area.

Syafrudin, the head of Tinggi Moncong district, said that not only human beings had succumbed to the landslide. Hundreds of head of livestock were also missing, including cattle and goats.

The last devastating landslides in the country occurred at the end of January this year in Purworejo regency, Central Java regency where at least 15 people were killed. The landslides and floods triggered by days of rain swept through three villages in the regency.

The rapid pace of deforestation is blamed as the main cause of the landslides that plague Indonesia. Deforestation is caused by rampant illegal logging.