Rescuers were searching for dozens of people still missing Tuesday after floods and landslides swept away villages in Indonesia and East Timor, killing more than 160 people and leaving thousands more homeless.
Torrential rains from Tropical Cyclone Seroja turned small communities into wastelands of mud, uprooted trees and sent around 10,000 people fleeing to shelters across the neighbouring Southeast Asian nations.
Indonesia’s disaster management agency said it had recorded 130 deaths in a cluster of remote islands near East Timor, where another 34 have been officially listed as dead since the disaster struck on Sunday. We won’t let people live here. Like it or not, they’ll have to relocate.
Waimatan resident Onesimus Sili said floods early Sunday destroyed his community before anyone knew what happening. Around midnight, we heard a very loud rumbling sound and we thought it was a nearby volcano erupting,” he told AFP. By the time we realised that it was a flash flood, the houses were already gone.
Authorities in both nations were scrambling to shelter evacuees while trying to prevent any spread of Covid-19. On Tuesday, East Timor recorded its first virus death a 44-year-old woman since the pandemic broke out last year.
In other news – The video of dancing dad breaking it down has Mzansi in stitches
The South African social media scene has been taken by surprise following a video that is going viral showing a funny dad dancing at a party.
Some social media users seem to know him as a churchgoer but there’s one thing the fun-loving father has in him, he has charmed the South Africans. Learn more
Source: eNCA
