[Handout from Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency]
At least three people were killed and nine missing, officials said Friday, when torrential rains unleashed a landslide near the construction site of a controversial China-backed hydropower plant in Indonesia’s Sumatra region.
This is the second deadly landslide near the site of the U.S. $1.5 billion Batang Toru plant, which is being built in a rainforest where endangered Tapanuli orangutans live.
In Thursday’s landslide, piles of mud and debris spilled from a 50-meter (164 feet) high cliff and swept away locals and some workers below, said a senior official at the regional disaster mitigation agency (BPBD). The slide occurred after three consecutive days of heavy rain.