Floods that have crippled much of Indonesia's capital and killed at least 20 people have worsened, inundating scores of districts and leaving about 200,000 homeless.

Overnight rains caused more rivers to burst their banks across Jakarta on Sunday, sending muddy water up to three metres deep into the city of 12 million people.

Sihar Simanjuntak, an official monitoring water levels at rivers across the city, said: "Jakarta is now on the highest alert level."

Two days of incessant rain over Jakarta and hills to its south triggered the city's worst floods in recent memory on Friday.

Death toll

A health ministry official said 20 people in Jakarta and suburbs have died as of Sunday afternoon, mostly either by drowning or electrocution.

He said that about 200,000 had been made homeless.

The waters have inundated more than 20,000 homes, schools and hospitals, paralysing transport networks and forcing authorities to cut off electricity and water supplies.

Government agencies are struggling to provide aid to the homeless, many of whom are staying with friends or family on higher ground at mosques and government agency buildings.

Some people have attempted to stay in their properties, living on the second floors of their homes and refusing to be relocated by soldiers using rubber dinghies, officials said.

"Fortunately, people here are helping each other," said Yusnizar, a 53-year-old living in a housing estate on Jakarta's western outskirts where some 1,000 houses were awash with one-metre high muddy water. Like many Indonesians, Yusnizar goes by a single name.

Indonesia's meteorological agency is forecasting rain for the next two weeks.

PHOTO CAPTION

Residents evacuates a two-week old baby from a flooded area in east Jakarta February 4, 2007. (Reuters)

News Agencies