Heavy flooding leaves 370,000 homeless in Indonesia's Aceh

Dec 27, 2006, 7:03 GMT

Jakarta - Relief workers struggled to reach isolated villages in Indonesia's Aceh province after extensive flooding left nearly 170 people missing and more than 370,000 others displaced, officials said Wednesday.

Antara, Indonesia's state-run news agency quoted one district official as saying 500 people had been killed by floods that submerged tens of thousands of homes in Aceh's Tamiang district - the worst-hit region - since December 22.

But the report could not been immediately verified, while rescue workers and volunteers from the local Red Cross said they could not confirm reports that hundreds of bodies had been found.

Suwarno Amin, an official at Aceh's disaster relief agency, said the official death toll stood at 69 by Wednesday morning, although the figure could go higher when rescuers reach more remote areas.

He said more than 367,000 villagers were displaced by the floods which swept through seven districts in the province. Red Cross volunteers said at least 168 people were reported missing in Tamiang district.

In North Sumatra, 37 people died from rain-triggered landslides and floods in the province, and six more were missing. More than 41,000 people were seeking refuge on higher grounds.

'Many people were still in the isolated area and their haven't eaten for several days,' Irwan, a Red Cross official told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa by telephone from Tamiang district.

'We're badly in need of medicines and food, because thousands of survivors had been suffering from various illnesses, and thousands of other face starvation,' Irwan said.

Suwarno said relief workers had to use helicopters and rubber boats to distribute food, medicine and other supplies to the isolated areas as floods had washed out roads and bridges.

'We only able to reach and distribute relief aid through air,' he said, noting that floodwaters were receding in some areas but in many others thousands of homes remained inundated.

The flooding in Aceh was yet another disaster to hit the province after it was struck by the December 2004 quake-triggered tsunami, which left about 170,000 people dead or missing - the vast majority of the 226,000 people killed or missing in 12 Indian Ocean countries affected by the disaster.

Authorities have blamed heavy rains as well as the effects of deforestation for the destruction. Lack of adequate forest cover leaves the ground less able to absorb excess water.

Each year in Indonesia, tens of thousands of people are forced to flee their homes during the rainy reason and move into temporary shelters because of flooding.

In June, floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains killed more than 200 people in South Sulawesi province.