PALU, Indonesia - Indonesian search and rescue workers struggled in bad weather yesterdfay to reach survivors in flooded and landslide-hit Central Sulawesi, as the death toll from the disaster rose to 58.

The floods have affected some 36,000 people and are the latest in a string of natural catastrophes to hit Indonesia, where activists have long warned that logging and a failure to reforest denuded land will lead to repeat tragedies.

The head of the Central Sulawesi disaster control task force, Frits Abbas, said that 58 people had been killed, but the bodies of most victims were still buried under debris.

Days of heavy rains sparked floods that inundated Central Sulawesi's Morowali district on Sunday, demolishing hundreds of homes and severing transport links.

On Tuesday, two-meter high waters also swept through Banggai district to the east, said Rustam Pakaya, from the health ministry's crisis centre in the Indonesian capital Jakarta.

The floods have affected some 20,000 people in 16 villages there, he said, while the homes of some 16,000 others in Morowali were inundated.

Entire villages remain cut off in the area, located about 1,600 kilometers northeast of Jakarta, with torrents of mud and water wiping out access bridges.

People are taking refuge in mosques and the homes of relatives, Pakaya said.

A provincial health office team traveled to the area by raft and had arrived but there were no other details immediately available from them, while the Morowali police chief was also in the area, he said.

A Hercules transport plane laden with six tons of medical supplies and food left Jakarta at dawn Tuesday, while three doctors traveling to the affected area from a regional hospital were stranded en route, he added.

Search and rescue efforts were hampered by flooded and blocked roads into affected areas, while poor weather made flights and sea travel dangerous, the disaster control task force's Abbas said.

"We are not even sure whether teams of soldiers and police dispatched to the area have arrived," he said.

The teams left from various towns in the region on Monday.

In Uweruru village, a landslide hit on Sunday and a second followed after dusk Monday, burying several buildings, including a small mosque being used as a temporary shelter for survivors, district police chief Sri Suharsono said.

"But we have as yet no report on the number of victims buried in this landslide," Suharsono said.

Pakaya said later Tuesday that 16 bodies had been recovered in the village and around 30 more were believed buried there, while reports of 10 deaths in a second village were being followed up.

Flooding in Central Sulawesi, where illegal logging is reported to be rampant, submerged 16 villages in May and also forced thousands to flee to higher ground. The south of Sulawesi was hit by floods in June last year, leaving 250 dead and 100 missing.

Deforestation reduces the capacity of the ecosystem to regulate water and also leads to soil erosion and landslides. *AFP

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