Up to 40,000 people were caught in severe flooding following days of torrential rain in central Indonesia, where the death toll from landslides on Bali resort island rose to 13, officials said Saturday. Indonesia's Disaster Mitigation Agency said that incessant rains in the past five days caused rivers on Sumbawa Island to break their banks and inundate seven sub-districts in West Nusa Tenggara province. The agency's spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said a total of 40,291 villagers were affected by the floods with rainfall ranging from 30 to 70 centimeters (12 to 28 inches). Most of the victims were temporary sheltering at mosques and government offices while more than 8,000 others are still isolated and staying at their stilt houses in two sub-districts that are accessible by rubber boats. People are in urgent need of clean water, public kitchens, foods as well as medicines, Nugroho said. Meanwhile, in Bali, a new landslide in Subaya village in Bangli District on Friday killed one villager, said Dewa Made Indra, an agency official. Earlier, 12 people were killed in landslides that wiped out several homes in three mountain villages in the same district. Rains often cause flooding and landslides in Indonesia, an archipelago where millions of people live in mountainous areas or on flood plains near rivers.
