More floods on Indonesia's Sulawesi Island

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Fresh flooding and landslides on Indonesia's Sulawesi island hampered efforts to send food and aid on Thursday to some 20,000 people displaced from their homes, rescue officials said.

About 40 people were believed buried under mud in Central Sulwaesi province, but the poor weather and lack of heavy equipment hobbled efforts to rescue them.

Days of heavy downpour have caused landslides and floods up to three meters (10 ft) high, submerging hundreds of homes in the province, about 1,700 km (1,056 miles) northeast of the capital.

At least 60 people have died.

Frets Abast, coordinator of provincial disaster relief teams, said the floods had spread to two more districts, increasing the strain on already stretched rescue efforts.

In North Sulawesi province, the homes of 15,000 people were inundated after the fresh floods on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring 17, Rustam Pakaya, head of the health crisis centre, in Jakarta said.

In the neighboring South Sulawesi province, a landslide triggered by heavy rains killed nine people in a remote village on Tuesday night, the National Disaster Relief Coordination Agency said.

Officials said on Wednesday the floods and landslides had killed at least 65 people but revised the number to 60 on Thursday, saying some people had been counted twice.

Pakaya said Jakarta had sent health teams with food and medicines, but heavy rain had made access to the affected areas difficult.

A navy warship carrying food, tents and blanket is scheduled to arrive in the worst-hit parts of Central Sulawesi on Thursday, he said.

Helicopter food drops halted because of poor weather will also resume on Thursday, Abast said.

Deadly landslides occur frequently in Indonesia, where tropical downpours can quickly soak hillsides stripped of trees with little vegetation to hold the soil.

Central Sulawesi is also one of Indonesia's key cocoa growing areas. The Southeast Asian country is the world's third largest producer of cocoa beans.