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JAKARTA, Indonesia - Rescuers recovered dozens of bodies from a village devastated by landslides Wednesday on Indonesia's Java island as authorities struggled to get heavy lifting equipment to the affected areas. Officials said at least 78 people were killed or feared dead.Most of the victims were caught in a single landslide in the Karanganyar district in central Java. But hillsides collapsed onto houses and claimed victims in at least seven other places in the mountainous region, which had been lashed by hours of torrential rain.Police and soldiers working mostly with their bare hands or simple agricultural tools uncovered 36 bodies in Karanganyar, said Heru Aji Pratomo, the head of the local disaster coordinating agency."Everyone is working hard, we have good spirits," he told el-Shinta radio station.He said Thursday morning that at least 30 other people buried and feared dead.Other officials at the scene have given slightly different tolls for the number of dead and buried.A dozen other people were killed, or missing and feared dead, elsewhere in the region, officials said.Pratomo said rescuers were using high-powered hoses to wash away at the mud, but blocked roads and the remote location of the landslide meant that mechanical diggers and backhoes had yet to arrive.Seasonal rains and high tides in recent days have caused widespread flooding across much of Indonesia, the world's fourth most-populous nation. Millions of people live in mountainous regions and near fertile flood plains that are close to rivers.The latest disasters occurred on the third anniversary of a massive earthquake off Sumatra in December 2004 that triggered a tsunami. That killed more than 230,000 people and left a half-million homeless in a dozen countries.As in the days of Noah....
