Flooding in Indonesia and Argentina by Darren Bett
The heavy rains also caused flooding and washed away dozens of homes in six hilly districts in East Nusa Tenggara province.
Roads made inaccessible after a three-day deluge were complicating rescue operations in the affected areas.
Indonesia is a vast chain of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains. It is currently the height of the monsoon season, when landslides are frequent in the country. Tropical downpours can quickly soak hillsides where deforestation has left little vegetation to hold the soil.
Weeks ago, floods in Jakarta killed almost 100 people and paralyzed large sections of the city.
Meanwhile parts of Argentina are under water after sudden intense rainfalls hit several regions of the country.
In the northern city of Resistencia in the province of Chaco, the storms broke early on Friday pouring down eighty millimetres (3 inches) of rain in a few short hours.
Local residents were caught off guard and had to wade through the knee high waters and some eighty families had to be evacuated form their homes.
A high floodwall protects Resistencia from the nearby Rio Parana that has broken its banks several times in years past. The wall did nothing to prevent the sheet of rain from inundating the city.
These freak storms have struck other parts of Argentina in recent weeks, including the capital Buenos Aires. They are blamed on the El Nino weather phenomenon which is well know for causing flooding in Peru and Bolivia.
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