"It's tractors only in most areas," said Penny Brune, head of the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) in Kilinochchi, political capital of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

"We have reports that people are without food and are getting angry."

Flash floods in the capital Colombo also cut off roads causing major traffic jams, residents said.

The Colombo Stock Exchange opened one and a half hours late because traders were held up in traffic, officials said.

However, the more serious flooding was reported in the northern Mullaittivu and Vadamarachi East districts some 330 kilometres (206 miles) from Colombo.

The areas are controlled by the LTTE, which has been fighting for independence for the Hindu Tamil minority in the mainly Buddhist Sinhalese country.

On Monday, around 4,000 families were evacuated to schools on higher ground from flooded transitional camps where they have been living for the past eight months after their houses were destroyed by the December 26 tsunami.

A truck which toppled on a washed-out section of road connecting Kilinochchi with Mullaittivu prevented relief teams Tuesday from reaching the schools and makeshift shelters being used to house those evacuated.

"Our teams couldn't get through," Brune said. "An emergency meeting has been called of all humanitarian groups working in the area to coordinate our response to the floods."

She also said some tsunami survivors were refusing to move from wooden huts in their camps.

"They say people will break into their huts and steal what little they have left after the tsunami," she said. "But doctors are warning there is a hygiene problem because the septic tanks are all flooded."

According to local media, the floods were caused by a record 101 millimeters (four inches) of monsoon rain which fell on Monday in the Kilinochchi-Jaffna area.

An official from the Tamil Relief Organisation (TRO), the main group coordinating relief in Tamil areas, said some of those evacuated on Monday were displaced for the third time -- first by the 30-year civil war between LTTE rebels and government soldiers, then by the tsunami and now by the floods.

"For them, the tsunami was the worst, however. They lost most of their families," said TRO planning director Laurence Christy.

The tsunami killed some 31,000 people in Sri Lanka and displaced about a million, many of whom are still living in hundreds of transitional camps awaiting permanent housing.

Peace talks between Colombo and the Tigers have been deadlocked since April 2003 although a truce signed in February 2002 still holds.

Sri Lanka's new president, Mahinda Rajapakse, offered to hold fresh peace talks with the LTTE when he was sworn in on Saturday after narrowly winning the presidential ballot boycotted by Tamils.

Elusive rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, a self-styled Sun God whose picture is displayed in virtually every building in Kilinochchi is expected to respond to the offer during his annual Heroes' Day address to cadres at a secret venue on Sunday.

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