Thirty four people have been confirmed dead and 56 are still missing following a landslide which hit the village of Pasirlangu on the side of Mount Burangrang in West Java Province, Indonesia, on Saturday 24 January 2026. As well as local villagers, the landslide is reported to have hit a group of Indonesian marines on a training exercise in the area, who are thought to have been wiped out. So far the bodies of four marines have been recovered, with another nine still missing.
The landslide is reported to have been triggered by heavy rains associated with the northeast monsoon. Landslides are a common problem after severe weather events, as excess pore water pressure can overcome cohesion in soil and sediments, allowing them to flow like liquids. Approximately 90% of all landslides are caused by heavy rainfall. However, the root cause of the landslide appears to have been deforestation, with a large area of forest above the village cleared to create space for commercial vegetable farming. This process removes the root structure which binds soil together, making slopes more vulnerable to slippage, particularly in areas such as West Java, where soils tend to be volcanic, as such soils typically have much smaller particle sizes and lose cohesion more rapidly when they become waterlogged.
Monsoons are tropical sea breezes triggered by heating of the land during the warmer part of the year (summer). Both the land and sea are warmed by the Sun, but the land has a lower ability to absorb heat, radiating it back so that the air above landmasses becomes significantly warmer than that over the sea, causing the air above the land to rise and drawing in water from over the sea; since this has also been warmed it carries a high evaporated water content, and brings with it heavy rainfall. In the tropical dry seasons, the situation is reversed, as the air over the land cools more rapidly with the seasons, leading to warmer air over the sea, and thus breezes moving from the shore to the sea (where air is rising more rapidly) and a drying of the climate.
Java has two distinct Monsoon Seasons, with a Northeast Monsoon driven by winds from the South China Sea that lasts from November to February and a Southwest Monsoon driven by winds from the southern Indian Ocean from March to October. Such a double Monsoon Season is common close to the equator, where the Sun is highest overhead around the equinoxes and lowest on the horizons around the solstices, making the solstices the coolest part of the year and the equinoxes the hottest.
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