LANDSLIDE SURVIVORS PAY HOMAGE TO DEAD VICTIMS

Cianjur, Sept 21 (ANTARA) - Dozens of people who survived a landslide in Pamoyanan, Cibinong, Cianjur, West Java, on Monday made their first visit to the site of the disaster after three weeks to pay homage to those buried there.

They placed flowers on the site in remembrance of relatives buried under the rocks that fell on them during the landslide triggered by the recent powerful earthquake in West Java.

A sad atmosphere hung over the two-hectare area as the people shed tears remembering 32 of their relatives who died at the location while they would otherwise have been happy celebrating the post-fasting festivities.

Kosasih, one of the visitors, lost his wife and three children in the disaster.

He cried and fell to the ground in deep sorrow upon seeing the scene of the calamity he had tried to forget during the past three weeks.

"I do not know when this sadness will pass," he said softly. "This is the first time for us to return to our village," he added.

Three weeks after the incident, hundreds of survivors in Cibinong sub-district are still living in makeshift tents.

Besides people from Babakan Caringin, hundreds of residents of Cisalak in the subdistrict also could not yet return home because their houses had been flattened by the quake. They do not have money to set up new houses in the village located just tens of meters away from where the lanslide happened.

"We are ready to be relocated to safer villages," Husen (57) said.

There is as yet no certainty regarding their relocation to a new area already designated five kilometers away.***3***