Sijeruk, (Indonesia): A landslide unleashed by heavy rains in Indonesia's Central Java on Wednesday has killed 16 people but hundreds were feared dead as rescuers called off a search for survivors amid safety concerns.
A torrent of mud slammed into dozens of homes in Sijeruk village, 370 kilometres (230 miles) east of Jakarta, in the second disaster to hit Java island this week caused by monsoon rains and, activists charged, deforestation.
"We suspect there are about 200 people in 120 houses buried in the mud," local chief of police operations Budi said, adding that about 150 police and soldiers were involved in rescue operations.
A district welfare official, Umar Yulianto, said the toll stood at 16.
He said about 570 people lived in the area, with one section where about 170 people live unaffected. He did not say how many people had been accounted for. Local television said some 300 people were thought missing.
The landslide slammed into houses at about 0500 hrs, IST (2200 GMT) after three days of monsoon rains.
Television footage showed workers using two excavators and hand tools to dig into the mound in the hope of finding survivors. Only the top of tiled roofs of some houses were visible, along with smashed timber debris and other semi-flattened brick and concrete homes.
Rescue worker Dedi Suromli said the search was called off due to bad weather and would resume early Thursday.
"It is raining and foggy and it's not safe to continue the search," he told AFP, adding that 95 people were thought to remain under the sludge.
He said the landslide covered about six hectares (15 acres) and the mud was as deep as five metres (yards).
Banjar Negara deputy police chief Gusti Indra Cahyadi told the online Detikcom news agency that the road leading to the village was damaged, hampering efforts to bring in more heavy rescue equipment.
He said the area was prone to landslides during the rainy season but in the past only 10 houses had been affected at most.
The landslide came as rescuers continued to sift through debris and mud in the aftermath of flash floods in East Java province which have killed at least 57 people and left thousands homeless.
"The evacuation of bodies is still continuing. Twenty bodies are still at the scene but they have been included in the tally," Teduh Tedjo, who is coordinating police rescue efforts, told AFP by telephone from Jember.
Four villages in Jember district, 800 kilometres east of the capital, were affected. About 5,000 refugees sheltered in mosques, schools and other government buildings as 400 police and troops built emergency bridges and ferried medical aid, food and water to survivors.
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