AKARTA, June 22 (Xinhua) -- The death toll of Tuesday's landslide and flood in Indonesia's South Sulawesi province reached over 200, and it could increase further as the rescue teams are still searching for 128 missing people, a local official said on Thursday.

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    There are still many data of the fatalities that have not yet reported to the provincial post of the counter disaster, said Saharudin Rahmad, an official in charge in the provincial counter-disaster post.

    "The number possibly will rise, as there are still many houses and areas which have not yet touched the rescue team," Saharudin Rahmad, an official in charge in the provincial counter-disaster post in Makasar, the capital of the province told Xinhua.

    "The data reported to us now is 200 death and 128 missing," he said.

    Indonesian Minister of Forestry Malam Sambat Kaban said that the cause of the flood and landslide in the province was the lack of forest coverage on the land, which was resulted from the accumulative failure of reforestation for decades in the past.

    "The coverage of forest now in Sulawesi is only 27 percent (of the total areas), less than the minimum requirement of 30 percent," he said.

    However, Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla said earlier that the illegal logging was the cause of the flood and landslide.

    Indonesian Environmental Minister Rahmat Witoelar said, quoted by the local television of SCTV, that he would limit the issuance of the right for logging company, which he blamed have contributed on the natural disaster.