Yangon: The toll from flash floods and landslides in Myanmar after days of torrential rain is likely to rise, the UN warned yesterday, as monsoon downpours brought misery to thousands across the region.
At least 27 people have been killed and more than 150,000 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”.
In Kalay, one of the worst-hit towns in the country’s northwest Sagaing region, floodwaters yesterday reached the roofs of houses and above the height of some coconut trees. An official at Myanmar’s Relief and Resettlement Department said that at least 166,000 people have now been affected by the floods.
But the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the real figure was likely to be “significantly higher”.
About 20 people were feared dead after a hill collapsed onto a village in India’s northeastern state of Manipur on last Saturday following incessant rain, a local magistrate said. “So far we have reports of 20 people killed when a hillock caved and trapped the villagers,” magistrate Memi Mary said. “In one second, mud and rock smashed into my house. We were lucky to escape with our daughter,” To Thi Huyen, a 37-year-old primary school teacher, said. Two of the worst-hit areas in Myanmar Chin and Rakhine already host 140,000 displaced people, mainly Rohingya Muslims.
In Bago region, three hours north of Myanmar’s commercial hub Yangon, floodwaters had forced more than a thousand to take shelter in a monastery.
“There’s just too much rain this year and the dams had to let the water out,” construction worker Hla Wai said. AFP
