Deadly floods in Burma | Junta seeks foreign aid

(Taungoo) Myanmar’s junta leader Min Aung Hlaing has called for foreign aid in a rare move after floods left at least 74 people dead and 89 missing in the country and forced more than 235,000 people from their homes, state media reported Saturday.

More than 300 people have died in Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand in floods and landslides following Typhoon Yagi, which dumped torrential rains when it hit the region last weekend.

In Myanmar, more than 235,000 people have been forced from their homes by floods, the junta said on Friday, putting the death toll at 74.

This catastrophe 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 Taungoo, about an hour south of the capital Naypyidaw, residents paddled in makeshift rafts as water reached the roofs of some buildings.

About 300 people have taken refuge in a monastery on the hills above a nearby village. “We are surrounded by water and we don’t have enough food for everyone,” one man said.

“I lost my rice, chickens and ducks,” lamented farmer Naing Tun, who moved his three cows to higher ground near Taungoo after floodwaters inundated his village. “I don’t care about other assets. Nothing else is more important than the lives of people and animals,” he told AFP.

Rainfall following Typhoon Yagi has prompted people across Southeast Asia to flee by any means possible, including by elephant in Myanmar and by jet ski in Thailand.

As soon as possible

“Government officials should contact foreign countries to receive relief and assistance for the victims,” ​​junta leader Min Aung Hlaing said, according to the newspaper. Global New Light of Myanmar“It is necessary to rescue, provide assistance and repair the damage as quickly as possible,” he said.

“It is estimated that thousands of people have been forced to flee, but the numbers are difficult to verify due to telecommunications blockages and a difficult operating environment,” a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) told AFP on Saturday.

In Burma, the junta has in the past blocked international aid or thwarted foreign assistance programs.

In mid-June 2023, it suspended travel permits for NGO members trying to help around a million victims of Cyclone Mocha in the west of the country. The United Nations then denounced an “incomprehensible” decision.

In 2008, after Cyclone Nargis killed 138,000 people, the then junta was accused of blocking emergency aid and initially refusing to grant access to humanitarian workers and supplies.

A military spokesman said he had lost contact with parts of the country and was investigating reports that dozens of migrant workers were missing following landslides in a gold mining area in the central Mandalay region.

Local media reported that six people were killed in a landslide in Tachileik, eastern Shan state, on Friday.

More than 2.7 million people have already been forced to flee their homes in Burma due to the ongoing civil conflict.

Vietnamese authorities said Saturday that 262 people had died and 83 were missing. Images from Vientiane, the capital of Laos, showed homes and buildings flooded by the Mekong River.