Putri Prameshwari & Antara – The search for victims of the landslide at the Dewata tea plantation near Bandung will be halted at noon today, even though a dozen people are still missing.
"The maximum time for our operation is seven days [since the disaster occurred]," a spokesman for the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas), Gagah Prakoso, said on Sunday. The agency, he said, would now focus on providing assistance for landslide survivors.
Bandung district head Obar Subarna said the decision had been agreed to by the victims' families, as well as the Bandung Police and directors of the plantation company, PT Chakra. "We will hold a mass prayer on Monday for the victims," Obar said.
The landslide occurred on Tuesday morning, killing 33 people and leaving another 12 unaccounted for, said Ujwalprana Sigit, chief of the Bandung office of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB). "We'll keep searching until noon on Monday," Sigit said.
The landslide destroyed 21 houses, a mosque, a sports hall, an auditorium and Chakra's office building. Financial losses from the disaster could reach Rp 5 billion ($535,000), according to data provided by an information center in Dewata.
Sigit said those displaced by the landslide would be relocated to the Kanaan tea plantation, also owned by Chakra, which is about 30 kilometers from the site of the landslide. "They will stay in houses belonging to the company until they get new homes," Sigit said.
He also promised continued assistance for the displaced from both the company and the BNPB. "Thankfully, donations are still flooding in," he said. "So we basically have what they need."
Bandung Police Chief Imran Yunus said two more earth-moving machines had arrived to assist in rescue and recovery efforts. "However, it's difficult to find more bodies because there's no accurate information on where to look," he said.
On Saturday, residents of three villages near the site of the landslide were evacuated after fissures were discovered in the ground at the Gunung Tilu nature reserve. Imran said the four large fissures, discovered by civilians in the hills around Gunung Tilu, had the potential to cause another landslide.
The evacuated villages were identified as Cimeri, Gunung Maut and Karang Tengah, all about 10 kilometers from the site of Tuesday's disaster.
Imran said experts had been called in and were examining the fissures to gauge their potential danger, but that in the meantime residents of the three villages would not be allowed to return to their homes.
All of the fissures were reportedly found on tea plantations belonging to Chakra. On Saturday afternoon, police put up a line around the area to keep people out.