Hundreds of rescuers using heavy machinery equipment and bare hands removed the rubbles of houses found 35 missing persons after landslides destroyed Tawangmangu district at Karanganyar regency of Central Java province on Wednesday, disaster management agency said.

 

An official of the agency at the field Anggit M.S. said that those taking part in the rescue operation included those from the national rescue agency (SAR), soldiers, police, students and other survivors.

 

Some other rescuers searched a river passing through the district to look for possible residents swept into it, said Anggit.

 

The landslides killed 61 people, said the official.

 

Two bodies have been discovered since the morning, both of them are dead, he said.

 

"The searching of the other 35 has been underway," Anggit told Xinhua from the district.

 

He said that flood had also inundated a number of houses, disrupted transport facilities and left hundreds of people displaced.

 

"Flood has submerged houses up to three to five meters, and roads have been buried by soils, which paralyzed transportation," he said.

 

"Hundreds of residents could not stay at their houses as they were destroyed," he added.

 

Head of the emergency unit of the National Disaster Management Agency Sugeng Triutomo said that relief had been distributed from the Karanganyar regency to the survivors. If they were insufficient, more would be sent from Jakarta.

 

"The Karanganyar administrators have sent logistics, tents and medicine needed for the residents," he told Xinhua.

 

Triutomo said that an assessment for the further needs of the survivors has been carried out now.

 

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Wednesday asked relevant officials to speed up work of combating the disaster.

 

Indonesia has been frequently hit by flood and landslide due to lack of forest-covered areas, which could not hold excessive waters during heavy rains.

 

Activists have already warned that the forests in the area are under threat from large-scale forest destruction.

 

Indonesia, which is losing its forests at the world's fastest rate, is struggling to preserve its rain-forest from deforestation.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 26, 2007)