Dam burst near Indonesian capital kills 50

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-03-27 19:44

CIRENDEU -- Torrential rain caused an old dam to burst its banks early Friday, sending a wall of muddy water crashing into a suburb of the Indonesian capital. The flood killed at least 50 people, left scores missing and submerged hundreds of homes.

A soldier searches for flood victims on the outskirts of Jakarta March 27, 2009. A dam on the outskirt of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, burst early on Friday morning, killing 50 people and flooding hundreds of houses nearby, official said. [Agencies]

Rescuers used rubber rafts to navigate streets that were transformed into dark rivers littered with bodies, chairs and sandals.

They predicted the death toll would rise.

"I'm devastated," cried Cholik, 21, as he sat next to the body of his 54-year-old mother. His brother-in-law also was killed and his 1-year-old niece was missing. "I wasn't home last night. ... I should have been there to save them."

The earthen dam, built in the early 1900s, when Indonesia was still under Dutch colonial rule, surrounded a man-made lake in Cirendeu, on the southwestern edge of Jakarta. It collapsed just after 2 a.m., when most people were sleeping, sending 70 million cubic feet (2 million cubic meters) of water cascading into homes.

Several survivors said it felt like they'd been hit by a "mini-tsunami."

Water levels were so high in some places that people waited with their pets on rooftops for rescuers. Telephone lines were toppled and cars swept away, some ending up in parks hundreds of feet (meters) from where they'd been parked.

Residents are evacuated from the flood-hit area in the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia, March 27, 2009. [Xinhua]

By mid afternoon, hundreds of victims gathered at nearby Muhammadiyah University, which was transformed into a makeshift morgue. Many were wailing as soldiers and police brought in bodies, covering them in white sheets of plastic.

Cecep Rahman, 63, lost his wife, son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter in the disaster.

"I heard a crashing sound and looked out my window," he choked. "The tide was so strong, like a tsunami. They were swept away ... there was nothing I could do."

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