PADANG, Indonesia (Reuters) -Rescuers on Indonesia’s flood- and landslide-hit Sumatra island rushed on Thursday to pull stranded residents out of fast-flowing muddy waters that smashed through homes and forced thousands of people to flee a rare tropical cyclone in the area.
The cyclone blew across the Indonesian archipelago’s western-most area, inundating the nearby Malacca Strait and causing floods and landslides that have killed at least 61 people, authorities said. They fear the toll could go up with rain continuing and 100 residents still missing.
Responders used helicopters to deliver aid and for logistics in the northern part of the island, which was the hardest hit with roads cut off and communications infrastructure destroyed by landslides, the country’s disaster mitigation agency said.
Police official Ferry Walintukan said 43 people had been killed in North Sumatra province. Nine people died in West Sumatra and nine others in Aceh province on the northwestern tip of the island, officials in those areas said.
Floods “hit the area around dawn and smashed into houses,” Radi, a resident who goes by only one name, told Reuters in Padang, a major city in West Sumatra. Reuters saw cars overturned by the inundation, and people were trapped in their homes.
Communication and power had been cut, and most access lost to the worst-hit areas, said Yuyun Karseno, an official at the disaster mitigation agency in North Sumatra.
Twelve thousand people have been evacuated, and many more awaited help, according to authorities in several provinces on the island.
A video shared by radio channel Elshinta on social media showed a person carrying a baby in a plastic container in the Central Tapanuli area.
Footage and photos shared by the agency show rapid currents of water overflowing across the region, leaving buildings destroyed in their wake.
Ilham Wahab, a disaster mitigation official in the west of the island feared the death toll was likely to increase due to a collapsed bridge and persistent rain on Thursday.
The head of Central Tapanuli local government, Masinton Pasaribu, said illegal logging and land clearing for palm fruit plantations had exacerbated the floods and landslides. Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of palm oil.
“Illegal logging in the hills had threatened the orangutan and in many areas palm fruit trees are also being planted,” Pasaribu told Reuters.
The flooding in Indonesia is one of a series of weather disasters to hit Southeast Asia this week. Over 30 people were killed by floods in Thailand and Malaysia, with water levels high enough to submerge hospitals.
(Reporting by Stanley Widianto and Ananda Teresia in Jakarta and a Reuters journalist in Padang; Editing by David Stanway, Gibran Peshimam, Peter Graff)
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