Waters from overflowing rivers swept away nine villages in the Indonesian province of Central Java and landslides fell on villages on mountain slopes after torrential rains.
Videos and photographs released by the National Search and Rescue Agency showed workers desperately digging in villages where roads and green terraced rice paddies were transformed into murky brown mud and villages were covered in thick mud, rocks and uprooted trees.
National Disaster Management Agency spokesman Abdul Muhari said flooding caused a landslide on Monday that buried two houses and a cafe in the Petungkriyono tourist area.
The disasters destroyed 25 houses, a dam and three main bridges connecting villages in the city of Pekalongan. At least 21 people were killed, 13 were injured and nearly 300 were forced to flee to temporary government shelters.
Dozens of rescue personnel recovered three mud-covered bodies, including that of a five-month-old baby, while searching an area of Petungkriyono where tons of mud and rocks buried two houses and a cafe.
Another body was pulled from under a broken bridge near a river in the village of Kasimpar. Rescuers continue searching for five missing people.
Heavy seasonal rains from October to March frequently cause flooding and landslides in Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile floodplains.
