Survivors recall terror of landslides from North Sumatra cyclone

North Tapanuli, North Sumatra – Sri Yuni Pardede, 20, was with her household astatine location erstwhile a thunderous clang jolted them awake astatine 2:30am (09:30 GMT). “My mother-in-law said it was conscionable thunder. I said, ‘No, the location is shaking.’ Not agelong after, boulders came crashing down,” she recalled.

“My younger sibling was staying over. When the landslide happened, I kicked him to aftermath him up. If we had each been sleeping, we would person died successful that house.” Grabbing her daughter, Eleanor, Sri fled to the adjacent church. From the hilltop, they watched successful fearfulness arsenic different landslide wholly destroyed their home.

For a week now, the household has taken refuge astatine the religion alongside hundreds of different displaced victims. The cyclone-triggered floods and landslides person killed astatine slightest 770 people, according to authorities data, with 463 radical inactive missing.

“Praise God, we were each saved. Our belongings tin beryllium replaced, what matters is that the children and everyone other survived,” she said. The trauma, however, lingers. “Whenever I perceive a sound, similar a doorway opening oregon closing, I get scared. Any large sound shocks me. On our archetypal time astatine the church, I heard the sound of a helicopter. I screamed; ‘We’re going to die!’ I astir fainted due to the fact that I thought it was different landslide.”

Sri hopes for authorities assistance with relocation. “We cannot instrumentality there. We don’t privation to unrecorded determination immoderate more. We are excessively traumatised,” she explained.