Jakarta: Indonesian Floods Claim 21 Lives, Including 11 Schoolchildren
Heavy rains turned into a nightmare for Indonesia’s northwest, sending flash floods and landslides that have left 21 people dead (11 of them young students), 15 missing, and destroyed hundreds of homes.
What’s Happening
More than 500 houses across North and West Sumatra are either flooded or badly damaged. The water even swept away three suspension bridges, making rescue routes even trickier.
“Evacuation and search‑and‑rescue are underway,” said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for the disaster‑mitigation agency BNPB. “The villages are up in the mountains and, thanks to damaged roads, reaching them is a hard ball game.”
School Tragedy in North Sumatra
On Friday, a classroom wall collapsed in an Islamic village school after a nearby river burst its banks. Eleven children lost their lives, buried in a muddy mess of debris. Authorities are still looking for one student from the 29‑person class who remains missing.
Other Fatalities
- Two people died Saturday after their cars were swallowed by the river.
- Four people succumbed to landslides in Sibolga city.
- Four more—two of them children—died from flash floods in West Sumatra.
Police chief Irsan Sinuhaji said rescuers are both tracking the missing schoolgirl and keeping an eye out for other folks who might have slipped under the water. The situation is far from calm, but every effort is being poured into ending the crisis.
Bottom Line
While the houses keep splashing and roads keep getting drowned, the heartache remains. The nation mourns, and rescue teams rush to find those still lost – a slow, grim tale of nature’s wrath in a world fighting for safety.
