The mob made off with buckets and cooking utensils when they found no food.

"Whoever took our food will be damned! It is OK for me not to eat, but not my child," shouted young mother Saijah, carrying her three-year-old son.

After the incident around 20 police, wearing shorts and t-shirts as their uniforms were swept away in the floods, were dispatched to secure the post.

Tonnes of food, water, tents and medical supplies have been trucked and flown into the main cities and towns in areas hit by the flash floods, which have killed more than 100 people and forced some 400,000 to flee their homes.

But transporting supplies across Aceh and North Sumatra provinces to stranded villagers who are running short of food is proving difficult.

"We are still concentrating on logistics distribution to difficult access areas, such as Gayo Lues and Bener Meriah," Aceh provincial governor Mustafa Abubakar told AFP from Banda Aceh.

"In particular, Pinding village, where landslides cut off the main access to the village -- we managed twice to reach the place by air, but bad weather is still hampering further deliveries," he said.

"People from neighbouring areas tried to bring supplies with horses, since cars still cannot reach the area."

The Indonesian Red Cross said it had sent food, blankets and tarpaulins to the areas worst affected by the floods and a landslide in North Sumatra which killed at least 30 people.

Indonesian Red Cross official Arifin Muhammad Hadi said they had also received aid from the French and Spanish Red Cross organisations and Australia's AusAid.

"We will distribute this aid as soon as possible," the official said in a statement.

Helicopters have been dropping rice and instant noodles to people in the most cut-off areas, while trucks carrying noodles and biscuits were seen getting through to villages in Aceh Tamiang as the floodwaters started receding.

Some 400,000 people fled the floods, with 365,335 people displaced in Aceh province alone, as whole villages were swallowed.

With water levels dropping in many areas, more than 100,000 had returned home by Thursday, television reports said, citing official figures.

Returning villagers faced the mammoth task of cleaning houses damaged by the floods and filled with mud, while children were shown playing in the floodwaters and enjoying their enforced time off school.

More than 250,000 remaining evacuees from Aceh and North Sumatra are being accommodated in government buildings, schools and tents in 22 locations, while others have found shelter with relatives and friends.

Disaster relief officials said they were preparing for outbreaks of disease in the emergency camps.

"There are health services in all the refugee camps. We are anticipating cases of diarrhoea, upper respiratory infections and related diseases," Suwarno Amin, relief effort coordinator, told AFP.

In the worst-hit district of Aceh Tamiang, water supplies were not sufficient to meet demand, said local Red Cross coordinator Abdul Hayat.

"What people need here is clean water for drinking and washing. Every day, water tanks come here and people take away water in jerry cans, but it is not enough for everybody," he told AFP.

The government has blamed illegal logging as one of the causes of the deadly floods, and pledged to intensify its efforts to replant forests.

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

earlier related report
Malaysian Flood Toll Rises To 10
Kuala Lumpur (AFP) Dec 28 - At least 10 people have been killed by floods in Malaysia and several others are still missing, officials said Thursday, as the government insisted it had issued adequate flood warnings.

Authorities recovered the body of a three-year-old girl and her mother in the worst-hit southern state of Johor, part of a family whose car was swept away by floods.

"The car stalled in the water and they tried to get out, and at the same moment, the water came running in and they were swept together with the car," a Johor state official told AFP.

The father is in hospital, while rescuers are searching for another young daughter as well as a 14-year-old teenager in Johor, officials said.

As relief operations continued, the government deflected criticism from victims that they had no advance flood warnings.

"The system was effective, but the increase in the water level was quite extraordinary, beyond anybody's expectation, so that was something totally unexpected," the official Bernama news agency quoted deputy premier Najib Razak as saying late Wednesday.

Some 57,774 flood victims Thursday remained camped out in relief centres, Johor officials said, while there are another 2,188 evacuees in the western tourist state of Malacca and 825 in central Pahang state, according to Bernama.

Najib on Thursday called on government agencies to brace themselves for a second wave of floods as the meteorology department forecast more rain in coming days.

"If it doesn't occur, then thank God, but if it does, we must be in a state of readiness so that the necessary operations can be carried out efficiently," he was quoted as saying by Bernama.

The meteorological department said Thursday heavy rain would continue in Johor as well as other affected states of central Pahang, and northeastern Kelantan and Terengganu until Sunday.

Authorities in the eastern Sarawak state on Borneo island were meanwhile preparing for heavy rains from Friday until Monday, with leave cancelled for police and fire fighters.

Tourism Minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, who has been promoting a tourism campaign for Malaysia in 2007, said Thursday he feared the Johor floods would affect arrivals, especially from neighbouring Singapore.

Some 80 percent of the 16.4 million tourists to Malaysia last year were from Asia, with Singaporeans making up 60 percent of those arrivals.

"We can only pray and hope the flood will subside quickly so that tourists can come into the country," he was quoted as saying by Bernama.

Related Links
Indonesian Red Cross
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