Helicopters have been deployed to help search for survivors among 72 people reported missing so far in the eastern Nusa Tenggara Islands, where Tropical Cyclone Seroja brought strong winds and heavy rains that triggered flash floods and landslides.
An amateur video made by a local official in the village of Tanjung Batu on the island of Lembata, which is home to Mount Lewotolok volcano, showed felled trees and large rocks of cold lava that crushed houses after being displaced by the cyclone.
Authorities said the death toll could rise as rescuers reach more isolated areas. Images from the region on Monday showed felled trees, rough seas and storm-flooded wooden houses and debris floating in the muddy muddy waters.
At least 8,424 people have been displaced, nearly 2,000 buildings, including a damaged hospital, and more than 100 homes badly damaged by the cyclone, which moved across the Indian Ocean on Tuesday morning, were heading for northern Australia.
The head of the weather agency, Dwikorita Karnawati, said that rare tropical cyclones used to happen more often in Indonesia, and climate change could be to blame.
“Seroja is the first time we have seen an extraordinary impact, because it has hit the ground running. It is not common,” she told a news conference.
In the nearby province of Nusa Tenggara, authorities said on Monday that two had died, while in neighboring East Timor at least 27 had died.
Some inhabitants of Lembata Island could have been washed away by mud in the sea. The deputy head of the district hoped that help would be on the way.
“We only managed to search the beach, not the deeper area, due to the lack of equipment yesterday,” Thomas Ola Langoday told Reuters by telephone.
Lembata suffered a volcanic eruption last month, wiping vegetation from the top of the mountain, allowing the hardened basin to slide toward 300 houses when it hit the cyclone, he said.
Langoday feared that many bodies were still buried under large rocks.
President Joko Widodo held a cabinet meeting on Tuesday to speed up evacuation and relief efforts and restore power.
“If we can’t get there on the road, I ask that we quickly open access to the sea as well as the air,” the president said, adding that extreme weather prevented the aid from being distributed.
The head of the search and rescue agency, Doni Monardo, said on Tuesday that he was helping the military and volunteers.
Monardo said there are health problems with overcrowding of evacuation centers and that authorities will provide quick COVID-19 test kits to try to prevent an outbreak.