The vast majority of the victims found so far are East Timorese women and children who were living in squalid refugee camps in the West Malaka sub-district of West Timor when the floods began on Tuesday. Local authorities are blaming a combination of prolonged monsoon season rains and a tidal surge caused by the full moon for the scale of the disaster. People are describing how their relatives were washed out to sea. In some areas the water is still rising so it will be several days before we get a clear picture of what has happened. Many people have not eaten properly for three days so they are starting to eat the carcasses of their dead livestock.
Rain is forecast for tonight.
If it does rain heavily then the situation will get much worse. Initial assessments suggest more than 20,000 people have lost their homes and that at least another 50,000 have been affected by the flood. Thousands of tonnes of recently harvested crops have also been destroyed.