DILI, East Timor  - Five days of deadly flooding across Timor island may also have spoiled East Timor's multimillion-dollar coffee harvest, the territory's independence leader said Saturday.

Jose "Xanana" Gusmao said many parts of his country have been severely affected by the heavy rains and flash floods blamed for at least 125 deaths in West Timor, the other half of the island.

The loss of the coffee harvest would be a bitter blow for the tiny Southeast Asian territory as it struggles to rebuild itself after a violent separation from Indonesia last year.

"The people are suffering," he said. "And now the coffee harvest may be damaged."

East Timor's coffee industry is expected to become the backbone of its economy, bringing in an estimated $30 million of much-needed foreign currency annually and employing about a quarter of the work force.

A mass burial was held for 81 people who died in the floods in the southern Belu region of Indonesian-held West Timor. U.N. officials said at least 125 had died in West Timor; Indonesian authorities put the death toll at 148, with more than 120 missing.

There have been no reported deaths from flooding in East Timor.

In the island's border lowlands, the floodwaters have started to recede. But more than 100,000 people are still displaced, with no means of returning to their homes. Many roads have been washed away and several bridges have collapsed, said Jake Morland, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokesman in West Timor.

"Some roads may take months to repair," he said.

U.N. administrators in East Timor have dispatched two choppers to airlift emergency relief supplies into the hardest-hit areas in West Timor.

Most of the victims are believed to be members of the families of pro-Indonesian militiamen who rampaged East Timor after its voters opted to secede from Indonesia in a U.N.-sponsored referendum Aug. 30.

A quarter of a million people fled the campaign of terror unleashed by the paramilitaries in the aftermath of the vote. About 90,000 still remain in camps in Indonesian-held West Timor.

The United Nations is administering East Timor in its transition to full independence. The former Portuguese colony, which was occupied by Indonesia in 1975, is expected to become independent within the next two years.

The world body's chief representative in East Timor, Sergio Vieirra de Mello, said he hopes the crisis may prompt many of the refugees still in West Timor to return home.

Gusmao also called on the remaining refugees to return home, saying they did not need to fear retribution from local inhabitants.

"Let all the East Timorese still in West Timor come home. Let us all live as brothers and sisters," he said.

Gusmao was speaking before a crowd of 3,000 people at an emotional ceremony commemorating the 26th anniversary of Fretilin, the leading political party in East Timor.