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Flash floods and landslides killed at least 30 people on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi and left hundreds displaced, authorities said on Thursday. Fifteen people remain missing, Indonesia search rescue agency spokesman Yusuf Latif said in a statement. The flash floods struck the North Luwu district of South Sulawesi province after heavy rain on Monday caused three nearby rivers to burst. More than 4,000 residents were affected.
Indonesia will carry out cloud seeding to try and prevent further rainfall over the capital, Jakarta, and surrounding areas the death toll reached 43 on Friday amid flash floods and landslides. With more rain forecast, two small planes were readied to drop sodium chloride to break up potential rain clouds in the skies above the Sunda Strait with a bigger plane on standby, said Indonesia’s technology agency.
At least 23 people were confirmed dead on Thursday and thousands were forced to evacuate, after severe flooding hit Indonesia’s capital as residents were celebrating the New Year. Tens of thousands of revelers in Jakarta were soaked by torrential rains as they waited for New Year’s eve fireworks on Wednesday. Jakarta’s domestic airport was also shut, where almost 20,000 passengers were stranded.
Graphic photos of the bloodied victims of what appear to be gunshot wounds have emerged after another day of violence in West Papua, which has seen at least 26 people killed and 70 injured. Four people were killed, including a military officer, and several others injured when Indonesian security forces opened fire on students following a protest about racism at a university in Jayapura on Monday.
Prabowo Subianto claimed victory for a third day in Indonesia’s presidential election, dismissing unofficial quick counts showing a win for incumbent leader Joko Widodo. Prabowo claims to have won Wednesday’s vote by polling about 62 percent based on a survey by his campaign team. Widodo, known as Jokowi, declared victory on Thursday, citing unofficial quick counts by about a dozen independent pollsters, which gave him an average 54.5 percent of the votes. Prabowo, who narrowly lost to Jokowi in 2014, has said he has evidence of massive voting irregularities.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo was poised to win another term running the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, even as opponent Prabowo Subianto signaled he would challenge the outcome. Six top private polling agencies had Widodo, known as Jokowi, ahead of the former general by at least seven percentage points with about 90 percent of the vote counted. After losing to Jokowi in the 2014 presidential election, Prabowo challenged the results in a lawsuit that was eventually dismissed by the constitutional court.
Indonesian police rescued a woman on Sunday in Central Sulawesi province after she was held as a sex slave for 15 years from the age of 13 by an elderly village shaman. The man was charged under sex abuse and child protection laws. The woman’s family initially brought their daughter to the shaman for treatment.
At least 14 people are dead and hundreds injured after a powerful earthquake hit popular tourist destination Lombok island in Indonesia on Sunday morning. The island attracts international tourists due to its beaches and hiking trails. The magnitude-6.4 earthquake damaged more than 1,000 buildings. The Indonesian Red Cross is helping with search and rescue.
Demonstrations over the outcome of last month’s presidential election gripped the heart of Indonesia’s capital on Wednesday after an overnight face-off between police and protesters in which Jakarta’s governor said six people were killed. The riots followed an announcement on Tuesday by the General Election Commission (KPU) confirming that President Joko Widodo had beaten his challenger, former general Prabowo Subianto, in the April 17 poll. Police have arrested up to 100 people on suspicion of provoking riots.
A magnitude 6.9 earthquake hit Lombok Island in Bali on Sunday morning, killing at least 91 people and injuring hundreds more just a week after another earthquake killed more than a dozen people in the same region. The earthquake damaged buildings as far away as Denpasar on Bali and triggered a Tsunami warning.