Emergency rations and medicine were airlifted Wednesday to around 414,000 people displaced by torrential rains on Indonesia's northwestern Sumatra island where flash floods and a landslide killed at least 109, the Associated Press reported. In Aceh province, the area worst hit by the 2004 Asian tsunami, survivors waded through shoulder-high water, stood on rooftops or paddled boats to dry land. At least 70 people were killed and 205 went missing in the province after raging water, several meters (yards) deep in some areas, swept through eastern and northern villages, washing away bridges and roads. In neighboring North Sumatra province, 28 people were buried in a landslide and 11 others died in flash floods, said Edy Sofyan, a local government spokesman. At least 14 more were missing after the landslide, he said. Sofyan said heavy rain _ which has forced more than 44,000 from their homes in Sumatra province _ continued and warned of the possibility of more landslides in coming days. More than 365,000 people were displaced in Aceh province. Food and medicine was being flown by helicopter to six districts, where an estimated 1,400 homes were submerged over the weekend, said Aceh disaster task force official Suwarno Amin. Thousands of victims headed for shelters on the road to the regional capital, Medan, many of them suffering from skin problems and fever caused by poor hygiene and dirty water, said Abul Hayat, a spokesman for the Red Cross. The natural disaster followed several days of torrential seasonal rain, the cause of dozens of landslides and flash floods each year in Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of 17,000 islands, where millions of people live in mountainous areas or in fertile flood plains. The water had receded in some areas by Wednesday, leaving behind deep mud and severely damaged homes, but an unknown number victims remained stranded in surrounding hills. Aceh was the region worst hit by the 2004 Asian tsunami, but this week's flooding was in areas unaffected by that disaster. In June, severe flooding and landslides killed more than 210 people on Sulawesi island.
