Thailand, Myanmar flood deaths increasing

HEAVY RAIN: The rainy season is not new, but it seems to be a very rough year, and Myanmar’s state of upheaval is not helping efforts to rescue survivors or provide aid

AFP

At least eight people have died in flooding in Thailand since Sept. 16, although none in the capital, Bangkok, which declared a disaster this weekend following heavy rains, the Thai government said yesterday.

The eight died in eastern provinces — five in Sa Kaeo, two in Chanthaburi and one in Saraburi — according to the Thai Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM), which did not give further details.

A woman tries to clear floodwater from her store in Bangkok yesterday.

Photo: Bloomberg

Excluding Bangkok, more than 500,000 households and 1.7 million people across 27 provinces in Thailand have been affected by flooding, the DDPM said.

About 52,000 households were impacted in the capital, which on Saturday declared a city-wide disaster after almost 48 hours of heavy rain swelled canals and flooded roads.

No deaths have been reported in Bangkok, and the DDPM said water levels had stabilized.

However, heavy rain and flooding were visible in at least one eastern neighborhood, with residents wading through thigh-high waters.

Schools have been closed, and people urged to work from home –- a call that many heeded, with streets and public transport networks noticeably quieter yesterday morning.

“Some areas in Bangkok are still facing high water levels,” government spokesman Ekkapob Pianpises told a news briefing.

Drainage systems had reduced water levels to the point that more people could travel, he added.

Thailand is used to wet weather and September is the peak of the rainy season, but many residents said this year seemed worse than past ones.

Heavy floods and landslides in southern Myanmar have also killed at least 10 people, with up to 30 still missing, a local rescue worker said yesterday.

Myanmar’s southernmost Tanintharyi region has been hit by heavy rains since Friday night, part of an intense weather system hammering the region.

“We have recovered eight bodies, while between 20 to 30 people are missing” in Tanintharyi’s Launglon township, said Hein Htet of volunteer group People’s Administration Team.

He said three of the recovered bodies were teenagers who had gathered at a local monastery on Sunday but were swept away by a landslide that hit their village, burying 18 buildings.

“There are still people and villages in the danger zone with continued rainfall,” he said.

Authorities have not yet released any official toll in a country where a civil war complicates aid efforts.

The conflict often makes even the scale of natural disasters hard for humanitarian organizations to judge.

“We are inundated not only with the scale of the flood but also with the lack of resources,” Hein Htet said. “This is a natural disaster in the conflict area.”

Myo Min, chair of the volunteer Dawei Zabuthiri Emergency Medical Service, said some villages were rendered accessible only by foot, and aid teams had found hundreds of residents displaced from homes to monastery shelters.

“Rescue workers have not yet been able to fully manage the entire disaster area,” he said in a phone interview.

He said he expected a death toll between seven and 10 people, with 20 to 30 missing.

Myanmar, a country of 51 million people, ranks among the 10 nations most vulnerable to climate change, according to non-profit Germanwatch.

It has suffered from severe aid cutbacks following US President Donald Trump’s decision to slash Washington’s humanitarian assistance budget.