Tuesday, 02 December 2025
Tuesday, 02 December 2025
Floods and landslides across Indonesia’s Sumatra island have claimed at least 753 lives, the national disaster agency confirmed on Tuesday, marking a steep rise from 604 deaths reported a day earlier.
The scale of devastation has widened as heavy monsoon rains and rare cyclonic activity battered large parts of Asia, leaving more than 1,300 people dead across Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Southern Thailand.
Authorities said the disaster was triggered by a tropical cyclone that formed over the Malacca Strait and swept through three Indonesian provinces, affecting around 1.5 million people.
In Indonesia, 3.2 million residents have been impacted, 2,600 injured and nearly one million evacuated.
The death toll makes it the country’s deadliest calamity since the 2004 tsunami.
In Tapanuli, the worst-hit area accounting for about a quarter of the fatalities, residents expressed fury over deforestation which they believe magnified the destruction.
Indonesian Reliwati Siregar blamed deforestation around her home on the island of Sumatra for the havoc.
"Mischievous hands cut down trees ... they don't care about the forests, and now we're paying the price," Siregar said at a shelter near her home in Tapanuli.
The landslides buried homes and crippled rescue and relief efforts, while floodwaters washed ashore dozens of logs, Siregar said.
"The rain did cause the flood, but it's impossible for it to sweep away this much wood," the 62-year-old added. "Those raindrops do not cause wood to fall."
Gus Irawan Pasaribu, a local government leader in Tapanuli, said the toll would not have been so severe if forests had been preserved.
Pasaribu said he had already protested to the forestry ministry over licences issued for the use of forest area for projects, but it ignored his pleas.
Another Tapanuli official, Masinton Pasaribu, pointed to the clearing of natural forests for palm plantations as a major driver of ecological vulnerability.
Environmental monitoring reports support these claims. Global Forest Watch data shows North Sumatra lost 1.6 million hectares of tree cover between 2001 and 2024.
Across Sumatra, 4.4 million hectares of forest have disappeared during the same period, a loss larger than the size of Switzerland.
David Gaveau, who founded deforestation monitor Nusantara Atlas, said global warming was the primary factor behind the floods but acknowledged that deforestation played a secondary role.
Aid workers continue to struggle to reach some of the worst-affected communities as blocked roads and collapsed bridges cut off access.
Parts of northern Sumatra remain unreachable by road. In Aceh’s Pidie Jaya Regency, residents likened the force of the floodwaters to a tsunami. One woman called it the worst disaster her family had experienced.
Environment-focused groups have warned that large-scale industrial projects have contributed to environmental degradation in the region.
Jaringan Advokasi Tambang (JATAM), which translates to the Mining Advocacy Network, said construction activities linked to the China-funded 510 MW Batang Toru hydropower plant, expected to begin operating in 2026, have damaged upstream ecosystems.
The group said the floods must be seen as a consequence of watershed destruction.
The Indonesian government has begun distributing supplies to the worst-hit provinces, including 34,000 tons of rice and 6.8 million litres of cooking oil, targeting Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra.
Yet residents in some areas say help is not reaching them. In Central Tapanuli, one of the most devastated districts, a resident reported that food stocks had run out and even instant noodles were being fought over.
She said clean water and basic necessities were increasingly difficult to access and that she had to walk kilometres to find an internet connection.
Environmental group Walhi, which sought to halt permits for the Batang Toru hydropower project in 2018, reiterated that the disaster stemmed partly from ecological mismanagement.
The group noted that legal permits to convert forest into extraction zones cover around 54,000 hectares, most of them for mining.
Among the permit holders is PT Agincourt Resources, which operates the Martabe gold mine. The company rejected suggestions that its activities contributed to the flooding, calling such links premature and inaccurate and citing extreme weather, an overflowing river and an accumulation of logs instead.
The World Health Organisation has deployed rapid response teams and medical supplies to affected regions and is strengthening disease surveillance.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the disaster was another reminder of the rising frequency and severity of weather-related events linked to climate change.
On Monday, President Prabowo Subianto - who was visiting some of the flood affected areas in North Sumatra - acknowledged some roads were still cut off, but added "we're doing everything we can to overcome difficulties".
"We face this disaster with resilience and solidarity," he continued. "Our nation is strong right now, able to overcome this."
