Death toll nears 100 from Indonesia landslides

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Ninety four people have been killed in Indonesia's west Java after fresh landslides triggered by torrential rain slammed into villages over the weekend.

The official Antara news agency said many of the dead were people looking for the metal in makeshift mines located in ravines and gorges around the villages.

Heavy rains also triggered floods in parts of east Java over the weekend, although there were no casualties, the Jakarta Post newspaper reported. It said thousands of homes and hundreds of hectares of rice crops had been inundated by water.

The wet season, which normally causes bouts of flooding across Indonesia, is scheduled to finish around April on Java, home to more than half the country's 210 million people.

In Central Java, hundreds are bracing themselves for a possible eruption by Mount Merapi.

Indonesia's Volcanology Research station issued the an "imminent eruption" alert, which is the highest possible, but Merapi remained calm.

Villagers monitoring the volcano using natural signs, such as the behaviour of small animals, believe the volcano could erupt sometime next week.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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