Two children killed, 24,000 displaced in Indonesia’s Sumatra island flood

Flooding and landslides are common in Southeast Asian countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia during the months-long rainy season, as all of them have suffered from natural disasters over the past few weeks.

Environmentalists in Indonesia blame the government’s deforestation to grow oil plantations on Sumatra island for the floods that killed at least two children and displaced 24,000 people on Tuesday.

According to the national disaster service, the island has been battered by torrential rains for days, prompting rivers to overflow their banks and causing water levels to rise in residential areas, causing destruction by destroying houses as well as farms on the way. Many houses were also submerged in Jambi province.

According to a member of the Walhi environmental NGO, logging on higher ground particularly had a negative impact in the village of Aceh, which is…