The disaster management agency says 115 people have been evacuated and more than 100 homes have been damaged due to prolonged torrential rain.
Landslides and floods triggered by heavy rain in Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province killed at least 15 people after dozens of homes were destroyed and roads were damaged, the country’s disaster management agency said.
Indonesia is prone to landslides during the rainy season, which began in January, with the problem worsened in some areas by deforestation, and prolonged rains have caused flooding in parts of the country comprising 17,000 islands.
Landslides hit Luwu regency in South Sulawesi on Friday, Abdul Muhari, spokesman for the Indonesian Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), said in a statement on Saturday.
“A total of 14 residents died due to floods and landslides in Luwu regency,” he said.
In another area of South Sulawesi, at least one person died and two others were injured, Abdul said.
According to the BNPB, more than 100 houses were seriously damaged and 42 were destroyed, while four roads and a bridge were damaged.
Around 115 people were evacuated to mosques or relatives’ homes and more than 1,300 families were affected by authorities trying to evacuate them.
Indonesia has recently experienced a series of extreme weather events during the rainy season, which experts say are more likely due to climate change.
In March, flash floods and landslides on the island of Sumatra killed at least 30 people.
In recent days, several Indonesian cities have also reported extreme heat, but the country’s meteorological service, BMKG, said the rise in temperatures was not part of a heat wave currently sweeping much of the Southeast Asian region.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
