Indonesian rescuers search for dozens missing after landslides kill at least 18 Rescuers are searching through mud and rubble on Java after torrential rain triggered landslides in Cilacap and Banjarnegara districts.
Rescue workers in Indonesia were digging through mud and rubble on 2025-11-20 after landslides on Java killed at least 18 people and left 34 missing across two districts.
The deaths were spread across Central Java’s Cilacap and Banjarnegara districts, where torrential rain triggered separate slides that buried houses and disrupted whole communities. In Cilacap, the death toll had risen to 16 after rescuers recovered additional bodies, while seven villagers were still reported missing. In Banjarnegara, rescuers had retrieved at least two bodies and were searching for 27 missing people.
The scale of the response shows how difficult the search had become. More than 500 personnel, including police and soldiers, were deployed in five devastated areas in Cilacap, supported by 22 excavators and 18 sniffer dogs. The recovery effort was being carried out in terrain transformed by mud, rocks and uprooted trees.
Authorities also turned to weather modification in an attempt to help the search. The National Disaster Mitigation Agency said it was using an aircraft with 3,000 kilograms of seeding material to try to keep weather conditions stable and redirect rain away from the rescue zones. That measure was intended to give workers a better chance of finding survivors or recovering bodies without further downpours slowing their progress.
The separate landslide in Banjarnegara came just before dusk on Saturday and buried at least 30 houses. More than 800 residents fled to safety, some moving to higher ground that local authorities still considered vulnerable to future slides. The picture that emerges is not of a single isolated disaster but of a broader emergency affecting multiple villages in a mountainous and rain-prone part of Java.
Indonesia faces these hazards regularly because of its geography and climate. The packet notes that seasonal downpours often cause landslides and floods in a country of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or fertile flood plains. That context helps explain why these events can turn deadly so quickly and why rescue operations often need heavy machinery, dogs and large human teams.
For now, the central fact is that the toll remains unfinished. Eighteen people were confirmed dead, 34 were missing, and rescue teams were still searching when the report was filed on 2025-11-20.
- Event date: 2025-11-20
- Confirmed dead: at least 18
- Missing: 34 total
- Affected districts: Cilacap and Banjarnegara, Central Java
- Response: more than 500 rescuers, 22 excavators, 18 sniffer dogs, weather modification aircraft
