Death toll in Indonesian floods, volcanic mud flows rises to 41
At least 41 people have now been confirmed dead after hours of torrential rain triggered flash floods and cold lava flow from a volcano in Western Indonesia over the weekend.
A local disaster official told the AFP news agency that 17 other people remained missing after the downpour on Saturday night swept ash and large rocks down Mount Marapi, the most active volcano on Sumatra island.
Three people are missing in the Agam district and 14 in Tanah Datar, both the worst-hit areas of the flood and home to hundreds of thousands of people, Ilham Wahab, an official with the West Sumatra disaster mitigation agency, told AFP.
About 400 people, including Police, soldiers and local rescue squads, have been deployed to search for the missing, using at least eight excavators and drones.
Marapi erupted in December, killing more than 20 people.
Cold lava, also known as lahar, is volcanic material such as ash, sand and pebbles carried down a volcano’s slopes by rain.
The rain turned roads into muddy rivers, swept vehicles away and damaged homes and other buildings.
Damage to the roads has hampered rescue efforts. (Aljazeera)
Thirteen killed in Belgorod building collapse, Russia says:
At least 13 people have been killed and 20 others injured when a building collapsed after being struck with fragments from a missile in the Russian border city of Belgorod, according to Russian officials.
A video released by the Russian Ministry of Civil Defence, Emergencies and Disaster Relief on Sunday showed firefighters and rescuers working on a huge pile of rubble. The Ministry said that 13 bodies had been recovered.
“The number of injured, according to the latest data, is 20 people,” emergency services were quoted as saying by the Russian state news agency TASS.
Earlier, the Emergencies Ministry said that 12 people, including two children, were rescued from the site.
Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov posted a video to Telegram showing a collapsed building with a large hole in it.
“Following direct shell fire on a residential building… the entire entrance, from the tenth to the ground floor, collapsed,” Gladkov said, condemning “massive bombings” by the Ukrainian Army.
The Russian Defence Ministry later wrote on social media that the building had been struck by fragments of a downed Tochka-U TRC missile. It also said that air defences had shot down several more rockets over the Belgorod region, as well as two drones that were destroyed in a separate incident. (Aljazeera)
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