Typhoon Yagi | Burmese junta asks for foreign aid

(Pyinmana) Myanmar’s junta leader Min Aung Hlaing has requested foreign aid in a rare move after floods killed at least 33 people in the country and displaced more than 235,000 people, state media reported Saturday.

Hundreds of villagers in Myanmar waded or swam through chin-deep waters Friday, fleeing heavy flooding near the capital Naypyidaw, as Vietnam launched clean-up operations after a deadly typhoon Yagi.

Northern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar suffered floods and landslides after the earthquake. Yagiwhich caused deluges of rain when it hit the region last weekend.

The latest regional report shows nearly 300 deaths, including 233 in Vietnam, where many people are still missing, thus risking increasing the death toll.

In Myanmar, floods have killed at least 33 people and displaced more than 235,000, the junta said Friday, adding that communications with some areas had been cut off.

This situation further aggravates the misery in this country which has plunged into a humanitarian, security and political crisis since the February 2021 coup against the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

In addition, authorities are investigating unconfirmed reports that dozens of migrant workers are missing following landslides in a gold mining area in the central Mandalay region, junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun said.

A resident of Sin Thay, near Naypyidaw, told AFP he spent the night in a tree with his two children to protect themselves from the rising waters.

The water reached the village during the night and “we did not have time to escape,” he added.

Villagers used boats, which they pulled behind them, to carry away some of their belongings.

“Very scary experience”

Soldiers rescued villagers living in a network of rivers and streams that surround the low-lying capital. Some were forced to wade through muddy waters as homes and surrounding banana and sugarcane plantations were submerged.

“This is the first time I have experienced such floods,” said a man near the village. “We didn’t have time to prepare, it’s a very scary experience.”

State media reported that flooding in the region and around the capital caused landslides and destroyed power plants, buildings, roads, bridges and homes.

In Mandalay region, villagers used an elephant to reach land unaffected by flooding.

Cleaning operations in Hanoi

In Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital, residents with shovels, brushes and hoses cleared debris and mud after floodwaters receded from parts of the city, where the sun was visible for the first time in days.

The Red River running through Hanoi reached its highest level in 20 years this week as rain brought by the typhoon Yagi was heading towards the sea.

“This is the biggest flood I have ever seen, the water rose to more than a metre,” Nguyen Lan Huong, 40, told AFP.

“The water started to recede yesterday afternoon, so we started cleaning up little by little. But it will take days for our family to fully recover, maybe weeks.”

A total of 130,000 people have been evacuated in northern Vietnam since the Yagi SATURDAY.

Many people have yet to return home while more than 135,000 houses have been damaged, authorities said.

The deadliest incident occurred when a landslide destroyed a village in the mountainous province of Lao Cai, killing 48 people.

But in rare good news, eight people who went missing in a landslide have returned safe and sound.

Northern Thailand has also been hit hard, with one district on the border with Myanmar reporting its worst flooding in 80 years.

Authorities said Friday that a landslide in Chiang Rai province had killed 10 people in the kingdom.