More than 80 feared dead in Indonesia floods

Social Affairs Minister said that sarongs, blankets, biscuits, medicine, body bags and medical staff were to be flown in.

Over 80 people in Indonesia's South Sulawesi province are feared to have been dead in floods and landslides, an official said on Wednesday.

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The disaster, which has affected at least seven districts in the province after two days of torrential rain, is the latest in a series of similar tragedies to hit the archipelago nation in 2006.

Amrullah Hanafi from the South Sulawesi spokesman's office said that 67 people had drowned in floods across the Sinjai district while 11 others were killed in landslides.

In Bantaeng and Bulukumba districts, two lives each were claimed, and one was killed in Bone district, while eight others were missing in total, he said.

"We cannot say yet whether they are dead because we just do not know where they are. They may have not been in the area when it happened or may have gone to another village," he said.

Muhidin, an official from the search-and-rescue agency in the South Sulawesi capital of Makassar, said that police, military, local search and rescue officials as well as other local authorities were hunting for survivors.

The government has dispatched aid for the victims.

Social Affairs Minister Bachtiar Chamsyah said before attending a cabinet meeting that sarongs, blankets, biscuits, medicine, body bags and an undetermined number of medical staff were to be flown in.

The minister told reporters that he had also ordered local social welfare offices to distribute 100 tonnes of rice to the affected districts.