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Landslide kills 11 people in Indonesia's Papua province

Other News Materials 15 January 2008 09:51 (UTC +04:00)

( dpa ) - A landslide triggered by heavy downpours buried 11 people alive and injured several others in the easternmost Indonesian province of Papua, a local media report said Tuesday.

The landslide took place at around midnight Monday in the provincial capital of Jayapura, burying a number of homes. Heavy rains also caused rivers in Papua's capital to overflow their banks, inundating hundreds of homes, the state-run Antara News Agency reported.

Rescue workers recovered four bodies and a search was underway for seven other missing people, including a six-month-old baby, who were presumed dead after they were buried alive under tons of mud. Five survivors were hospitalized for injuries caused by the landslide.

In was the latest in a series of rain-triggered disasters in Indonesia in recent weeks.

Landslides are frequent in Indonesia, where years of deforestation have left hillsides vulnerable to collapse. Tropical downpours can quickly soak areas stripped of the vegetation that had once held the soil in place. Environmentalists have warned that logging and a failure to reforest denuded land are to blame.

Early this month, seasonal torrential rains triggered landslides and heavy floods in Indonesia's densely populated Java island, leaving more than 150 people dead or missing, and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.

The rainy season in Indonesia hits a peak from December to February.

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