Navy Dispatches Marines to Aid Banjarnegara Lanslide Victims
15 December 2014 10:48 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Surabaya – The Indonesian Navy has formed and dispatched a Marine taskforce to aid landslide victims in Banjarnegara regency, Central Java, spearheaded by Lt. Col. M. Bambang Purnama.
“[The taskforce] left for the disaster location on Saturday at 22:00 and arrived on Sunday,” Navy spokesman Col. Suradi Agung Slamet wrote in an e-mail in Surabaya on Monday, December 15, 2014.
The taskforce comprises 122 personnel, consisting of a company supported by a team from the Navy’s Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion.
“The Navy has also deployed a platoon from the Cilacap Naval Base and another one from the Cirebon Naval Base,” Suradi said. Until Sunday, the joint team had unearthed 42 bodies from under the landslide.
“It is estimated there are still 69 victims buried under the landslide,” said Harmensyah, the deputy of the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Division of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB).
SOHIRIN