KEY POINTS:
About 40 people are missing after floods triggered by heavy rain swept away a bridge in Indonesia's East Java province.
The floods engulfed cars and motorcycles passing the bridge in Madiun district, said a local police officer.
Two people were rescued but no bodies have been found.
About 80 people are also feared dead in landslides and floods in the neighbouring Central Java province.
Villagers on Indonesia's main island of Java were just finished cleaning up a home flooded by days of torrential rain when a landslide struck. Sixty-one people were buried alive, in the worst incident of its kind in the area for a quarter of a century.
Worst hit in the flooding in Central Java was the district of Karang Anyar, where 36 bodies were recovered and another 30 remained buried under thick mud near the banks of the Bengawan Solo River.
Another person was found dead and at least 14 were missing in two nearby districts, Wonogiri and Sukoharjo, after landslides struck their homes following 12 hours of non-stop rain. Emergency services were having difficulty reaching the area because roads were cut off by flood waters and mud.
In Karang Anyar, villagers who had cleaned up the mud-covered house of a neighbour were holding a late-night dinner to celebrate their efforts. As they ate and laughed together, another landslide tumbled down. The local search and rescue chief, Eko Prayitno, said that at least 61 people were buried.
Landslides are frequent in Indonesia, where tropical downpours can quickly soak hillsides and years of deforestation have left little vegetation to hold the soil. However, the head of the disaster co-ordination agency in Karang Anyar, an official named Heru, did not believe deforestation had contributed to the latest incidents. "The forest in the area is thick," he said.
- REUTERS, INDEPENDENT
