Police Disaster Victim Identification Team Identifies Victims Buried by Landslides Due to the Cianjur Earthquake

The National Police's DVI team held a press conference regarding the findings of the bodies of earthquake victims buried by landslides in Sate Sinta-Cijedil, Cugenang District, Cianjur, West Java, Monday (19/12/2022). (ANTARA/Ahmad Fikri)

CIANJUR - The National Police's Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team succeeded in identifying the bodies of victims buried in landslides caused by the 5.6 magnitude earthquake in Cianjur, West Java, which were found on Sunday, December 18, at the Cijedil landslide point. The victim was named Sahroni (24), a resident of Cijedil Village, Cugenang District.

Head of PIDM Public Relations Sub-Division of the Cianjur Police, Ipda Nanang Sunarya, said that the man's body had been identified based on fingerprints, medical signs, dental medicine, and property, so the number of victims identified had increased to 159 bodies.

"The 159th victim was found the day before and has been identified by the National Police's DVI team. The body was immediately handed over to the family for proper burial", said Nanang, reported by ANTARA, Monday, December 19.

Until now, he said, the National Police's DVI Team was still carrying out the process of identifying several other bodies that had been found earlier but had not received data from the family, so his party urged families who still felt lost to report to the antemortem post in the forensic department of Sayang Cianjur Hospital.

"Please come with the victim's data in the form of a family card, medical record, last photograph of the victim's teeth, fingerprint record, and bring relatives who have a kinship to take a comparative DNA sample", he said.

The 5.6 magnitude earthquake that rocked Cianjur Monday, November 21, 2021, damaged tens of thousands of houses, hundreds of thousands of residents were displaced, 603 victims died, and seven people are still reported missing and are still in the search process.

The search for victims was focused on two landslide search points due to the earthquake in Sate Sinta-Cijedil and Jalan Mangunkerta, Cugenang District, where the victim was reported to have been seen before being buried in an avalanche with a height of about 30 meters at the two points.