The number of people who have lost their lives to flash floods and cold lava flow from a volcano in western Indonesia over the weekend has risen to 41 with 17 more missing.
According to AFP on Monday, hours of heavy rain caused large volcanic rocks to roll down one of Indonesia’s most active volcanos into two districts on Sumatra island Saturday evening, while flooding inundated roads, homes and mosques.
“Data as of last night, we recorded 37 dead victims… But from this morning it has grown again, the figure reached 41 (dead),” Ilham Wahab, West Sumatra disaster mitigation agency official, told AFP.
Rescuers were searching for 17 still missing, three in Agam district and 14 in Tanah Datar, both the worst-hit areas of the flood and home to hundreds of thousands of people, he said.
Ilham could not confirm the number of locals evacuated because officials had encouraged “people to evacuate to relatives’ places, which are safer” than tent shelters in heavy rains.
