Bad weather hampers search for missing victims in Bandung landslide

Bad weather hampered the search for scores of victims people feared buried under a landslide in a tea plantation area in Bandung, West Java, an official said.

“Fog occurs during the day along with rain. We are worried of another landslide [during such weather],” spokesman of the National Disaster Management Agency Priyadi Kardono said Saturday as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Priyadi said that as of Saturday search workers have recovered 26 bodies and were searching for 19 more believed to buried.

He said that the agency has formed three groups of workers; one for the search, another to help the refugee and the other to open access the disaster location.

Days of heavy rain prompted the landslide Tuesday at the mountainous in the village of Tenjolaya in Ciwidey district, which is around 60 kilometers from Bandung. Half of the road leading there is only accessible by four-wheel-drive vehicles or off-road motorbikes.

“We have deployed four more heavy machines to help open access to the area,” said Priyadi.