Rescue workers in Myanmar yesterday raced to help tens of thousands of people stranded in remote areas enduring rooftop-high floods, as the death toll from the nationwide flooding climbed to at least 46.
Relentless monsoon rains have triggered flash floods and landslides, destroying thousands of homes, fields, bridges and roads — with fast-flowing waters hampering relief efforts.
Hundreds have also perished in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Vietnam, following floods and landslides triggered by heavy seasonal rains.
Photo: AFP
In Myanmar, “Forty-six people have died and more than 200,000 have been affected by the floods across the country,” a Burmese Department of Relief and Resettlement official said.
“We are speeding up assistance and relief work,” the official said.
Authorities declared the four worst-affected areas in central and western Myanmar “national disaster-affected regions.”
In the impoverished northern region of Sagaing, residents said floodwaters caught them off-guard as they swept into villages, swamping homes and fields.
‘NO WARNING’
“There was no warning... We thought it was normal [seasonal flooding],” said Aye Myat Su, 30, speaking at a monastery being used as a temporary shelter in the regional capital of Kalay.
“Within a few hours, the whole house was underwater. My husband had to get onto the roof as there was no way out,” she said.
Landslides in Chin State, south of Sagaing, have destroyed 700 homes in the state capital, Haka, while more than 5,000 people in another district are in relief camps, the state-backed Global New Light of Myanmar reported yesterday.
Burmese President Thein Sein said the government would do its “utmost” to provide relief, but said parts of Chin had been “cut off from surrounding areas,” the report added.
CHLORINE TABLETS
The Burmese Ministry of Health said it is distributing medical supplies across the country, including chlorine tablets, although it was unclear how it would reach many of the afflicted zones, with boats and helicopters in short supply.
Rains have also battered Rakhine State, which hosts about 140,000 displaced people, mainly Rohingya Muslims, who live in makeshift coastal camps following deadly unrest in 2012 between the minority group and Buddhists.
Elsewhere in the region, flooding had claimed the lives of more than 100 people in India, officials there said late on Sunday.
Another 109 have died in Pakistan over the past two weeks, according to authorities there.
In Vietnam, rescuers were battling toxic mudslides from flood-hit coal mines in the northern province of Quang Ninh, home to the UNESCO-listed Halong Bay tourist site.
Seventeen people have been killed in recent flooding in Vietnam, including two families swallowed up by toxic mud.
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