JAKARTA  - Floods triggered by two days of incessant rain in Indonesian West Timor have killed at least 38 people and inundated hundreds of homes, the state Antara news agency said Thursday.

The victims were from all from Betun village in Central Malaka sub-district, close to the border with East Timor, the head of the Belu district which oversees the area, Marselius Bere, told Antara.

Bere said the rains, which began on Tuesday, had swollen the local Beneneai river which broke its banks the following day, swamping most of the Central Malaka sub-district.

The fate of a number of farmers in Besikama village, in the neighbouring West Malaka sub-district, was still unclear because the floodwaters had cut off all access roads, Bere said.

In some areas, the flood waters reportedly reached up to two meters deep, he added.

The head of the Belu district social affairs' office, Untung was quoted by the agency as saying rescue workers had been deployed to evacuate residents from the flood-stricken areas to safer places.

But evacuation efforts were hampered because several bridges had been swept away by the floodwaters, he added.

Hundreds of houses, including many sheltering East Timorese refugees,as well as an elementary school building, and hundreds of hectares of farmland have been under water since early Wednesday in the two sub-districts of Belu, Untung said.

Bere said he had sought assitance, in the form of helicopters and rubber boats, from authorities in Kupang, the main town in West Timor.