Landslides, flood kill eight people in Indonesia

JAKARTA, Jan 23 (AP): Torrential rains overwhelmed a dam and caused landslides that killed at least eight people and displaced more than 2,000 in central Indonesia, officials said on Wednesday.

The dead included two infants who drowned and a man who was electrocuted after the floods began late Tuesday, said Adnan Purichta Ichsann, the chief of Gowa district near Makassar, the provincial capital of South Sulawesi.

Rescuers were evacuating residents to shelters at a government office and mosques, Ichsann said. The national disaster agency said four people are missing and more than 2,000 were in temporary shelters. It said nine districts including Makassar were affected.

Indonesian TV and video posted on YouTube showed half submerged homes and rescuers in boats reaching people clinging to tire inner tubes in the floodwaters.

Staff at the Bili Bili dam, a rock-fill embankment, didn't have time to provide advance warning of the water release, Ichsann said.