Twelve dead in landslides on Indonesia’s Bali

Twelve Indonesians, including three children, have been killed on the holiday island of Bali after landslides triggered by heavy rains engulfed several villages, an official said Friday.

Several houses were also buried and badly damaged in the incident, which took place overnight from Thursday to Friday in Kintamani district in central Bali.

“The extreme rain that occurred all day on Thursday has triggered landslides in three villages and 12 people have died,” disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

Three children, aged one, seven and 10, died in two of the villages. Five people were injured, three of them seriously. Local disaster agency officials said villagers had been evacuated from the affected areas — far from the popular beach resorts of southern Bali — and no one else was believed to be missing.

Landslides and flooding are common across the sprawling Indonesian archipelago, particularly during the months-long rain season which peaks in January and February.

In December, 29 people died and 19 others were left missing when floods and landslides hit Garut in the west of Indonesia’s main island of Java. Bali, a pocket of Hinduism in Muslim-majority Indonesia, is a popular tourist destination that attracts millions of foreign visitors to its palm-fringed beaches every year.