The toll from flash floods and landslides in Myanmar after days of torrential rain is likely to spike, the UN warned yesterday, as monsoonal downpours brought misery to thousands across the region.
At least 27 people have been killed and more than 150,000 people have been affected by flooding in Myanmar in recent days, with the government declaring the four worst-hit areas in central and western Myanmar as “national disaster-affected regions.”
Many people have also perished in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Vietnam following floods and landslides triggered by heavy seasonal rains.
Photo: EPA
Rescue work in Myanmar has been hampered by continued downpours and the inaccessibility of many of the remote regions worst hit by the deluges.
The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) yesterday said it had been informed by the Burmese government’s Relief and Resettlement Department that at least 156,000 people have been affected by the floods, but that figure was likely to be “significantly higher” because many areas “have still not been reached or reported on by assessment teams,” the agency said.
The OCHA said the official death toll of 27 was also likely an underestimate.
“As further information becomes available, this figure is also expected to increase,” the statement said.
Seasonal monsoon rains have also brought death and destruction to other Asian nations.
About 20 people were feared dead after a hill collapsed onto a village in India’s northeastern state of Manipur on Saturday following incessant rains, a local magistrate said.
Rescuers yesterday were clawing through mud and debris searching for bodies and survivors of the accident in the remote village in Chandel district bordering Myanmar.
“So far we have reports of 20 people killed when a hillock caved and trapped the villagers,” magistrate Memi Mary told media by telephone from Chandel town.
Torrential rains have triggered flooding elsewhere in India including in worst-hit western Gujarat, where the death toll has hit 53.
In Vietnam rescuers were battling toxic mudslides from flood-hit coal mines in northern Quang Ninh, home to the UNESCO-listed Halong Bay tourist site.
Seventeen people have been killed in recent flooding including two families swallowed up by the toxic mud.
“In one second, mud and rock smashed into my house. We were lucky to escape with our daughter,” primary-school teacher To Thi Huyen said.
Inundations have also hit Pakistan, with 81 people killed and about 300,000 people affected by floods in the past two weeks, while 36 people have perished in landslides in Nepal.
Two of the worst-affected areas in Myanmar are the remote and impoverished western states of Chin and Rakhine.
The Myanmar Red Cross Society said 300 homes in Rakhine had been destroyed or damaged, with around 1,500 people evacuated to shelters.
“The figures are expected to increase in the coming days as Red Cross assessment teams access remote areas of Rakhine affected by the flooding,” agency head Maung Maung Khin said in a statement released yesterday.
Rakhine already hosts 140,000 displaced people, mainly Rohingya Muslims, who live in exposed makeshift coastal camps following deadly 2012 unrest between the minority group and Buddhists.
State media also reported that the Chin state capital Haka had been rocked by landslides over the weekend destroying 60 homes, a number of key roads and seven bridges.
The sheer extent of the flooding is testing the government’s limited relief operations.
An official at Myanmar’s social welfare ministry who did not want to be named told AFP on Saturday that all but one of the country’s 14 provinces and regions were affected by flash floods with rescue workers “struggling to access flood-hit areas.”
Myanmar is annually struck by monsoon rains that are a lifeline for farmers, but the rains and frequent powerful cyclones can also prove deadly, with landslides and flash floods a common occurrence.
In May 2008 the then-ruling junta was heavily criticized for its slow response to Cyclone Nargis which devastated the Irrawaddy Delta region and killed about 140,000 people.
The army has since ceded control to a quasi-civilian reformist government and fresh elections are slated for Nov. 8.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not