West Bandung landslide: 17 people died, six bodies still unidentified

BANDUNG BARAT - The number of deaths due to a landslide disaster in West Bandung Regency has increased to 17 people. Until now, the process of identifying victims is still ongoing by the disaster victim identification (DVI) team.

"The victims who died due to landslides in West Bandung reached 17 people. The team managed to identify 11 bodies and the other 6 are still in the process of identification," said Head of the BNPB Disaster Data, Information and Communication Center, Abdul Muhari, Monday, January 26.

In the search operation carried out by the joint SAR Team on Sunday, January 25, a total of 25 bags of bodies were handed over to the DVI team. This number includes bodies that have been identified and those still waiting for identification results.

Abdul Muhari explained that all findings from the subsequent search operations were processed by the DVI team for identification purposes. The speed of the process depends very much on the condition of the body and the completeness of the supporting identity found.

"The results of the search operation of the joint SAR team were processed by the DVI team for identification. The identification process can be carried out faster if the body is in a complete state and has supporting identities," said Abdul Muhaei.

"However, for the bodies in the form of certain body parts, it takes longer to process the matching of ante mortem data," said Abdul Muhari.

Until now, the process of identifying all the bags of bodies that have been handed over is still ongoing. Meanwhile, the search operation for the victims resumed on Monday morning, January 26 with a focus on the search point that had previously been mapped through images processed through drones.

The landslide that hit the area at around 02.30 WIB caused 30 houses to be affected and one house was severely damaged. In addition, it was reported that about 400 residents had to be evacuated by joint officers to a safe place.