Indonesia floods kill 11 people, displace thousands

JAKARTA, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Floods and landslides triggered by torrential rains in Indonesia's Java and Nusa Tenggara Timur islands have killed 11 people and displaced thousands over the past two weeks, a health ministry official said on Friday.

Rustam Pakaya, head of the ministry's crisis centre, said more than 3,500 people have been displaced in Central Java where some cities have been inundated by filthy water up to two metres high for nearly two weeks.

Nine people have been killed in Central Java and two in the Nusa Tenggara Timur chain of islands, which lie east of Java island.

"Medical teams have been deployed to the flood-hit-areas," Pakaya told Reuters.

Floods and landslides are a common occurence during the rainy season in Indonesia, especially in heavily logged areas.

Last December, the Bengawan Solo river in central Java burst its banks due to heavy rains causing widespread flooding and several landslides, which left about 120 people dead.

Indonesia's leading environment group, Walhi, says ecological destruction caused by deforestation, land conversion and chaotic planning is responsible for the disasters. (Reporting by Mita Valina Liem, editing by Sugita Katyal and Sanjeev Miglani)