Search workers recover more bodies in Bandung landslide

Search workers have recovered a total of 23 bodies in a landslide that hit a tea plantation in Bandung regency, West Java, with more are believed to be buried under the ruble, an official said Friday.

Priyadi Kardono, spokesman of the National Disaster Management Agency, told tempointeraktif.com that five more bodies have been found on Thursday.

More than 1,000 rescuers with sniffer dogs have been searching the plantation near the village of Ciwidey after Tuesday’s landslide crushed homes, offices and a processing plant.

Some village houses and plantation buildings survived unscathed above where terraced rows of tea plants cleaved off the hillside and slid to a plain below.

Scores of houses as well as the plantation office and warehouse were rolled and crushed as they slid down the hillside with a swath of top soil and mud hundreds of meters wide.