Bodies of mother, young daughter recovered after Indonesia landslide

Emergency crews have recovered the bodies of a 3-year-old girl and her mother, who were both victims of a deadly landslide in Indonesia, authorities said Tuesday.

Rescuers were searching around the South Makale village in the Tana Toraja district of South Sulawesi province on Tuesday when they found the girl and her mother, wrapped them in orange body bags and carried them away across a dark and rainy field with the help of torches. 

They were the final two still missing after landslides on the Sulawesi Island killed 20.

Rescuers had to dig through thick mud with handheld tools to recover their bodies as the steep, muddy terrain blocked heavy equipment from being used.

18 CONFIRMED DEAD AFTER LANDSLIDES HIT INDONESIA’S SULAWESI ISLAND

Local police said the landslides started after torrential rain caused the surrounding hills to sink and fall onto four houses on Saturday. At least one family was inside one of the houses when the landslide hit, local police chief Gunardi Mundu said.

Mundu said dozens of soldiers, police and volunteers joined the search in the remote hillside villages of Makale and South Makale.

On Sunday, the rescuers pulled two people, including an 8-year-old girl, from the fields and rushed them to a hospital.

OVER 100 MISSING, AT LEAST 11 DEAD IN PHILIPPINE MOUNTAIN VILLAGE LANDSLIDE

Tana Toraja has several popular tourist attractions, including traditional houses and statues in caves, known as tau-tau.

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Indonesia, a chain of 17,000 islands where millions of people live, experiences seasonal downpours that cause frequent landslides and floods.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.