Local residents travel by boat on a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

The death toll in Myanmar in the wake of Typhoon Yagi has jumped to 74, state media reported on Sunday (September 15, 2024), a day after its junta made a rare request for foreign aid.

Floods and landslides have killed almost 350 people in Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand in the wake of Typhoon Yagi, which hit the region last weekend, according to official figures.

In Myanmar, the floods “resulted in 74 deaths and 89 people missing” as of Friday evening, the Global New Light of Myanmar said.

Search and rescue operations were ongoing, it said, adding that the floods had destroyed more than 65,000 houses and five dams, heaping further misery on the country where war has raged since the military’s 2021 coup.

The junta’s previous death toll was 33, with more than 235,000 people displaced, according to figures released on Friday.

Swathes of farmland have been inundated in central regions, including around the sprawling, low-lying capital Naypyidaw.

There have been reports of landslides in hilly areas but with roads and bridges damaged and phone and internet lines down, compiling information has been difficult.

The Sittaung and Bago rivers, which flow through central and southern Myanmar, were both still above dangerous levels on Sunday, state media said, athough water levels were expected to fall in the coming days.

Authorities in Myanmar had opened 82 “relief camps” to house displaced people, according to state media.

Thailand’s weather office warned Sunday of further heavy rain in provinces along the Mekong river.

Request for aid

The floods have heaped more misery on Myanmar, where more than 2.7 million people have already displaced by conflict.

Myanmar’s junta chief made a rare request for foreign aid to deal with the floods, state media reported on Saturday.

The military has previously blocked or frustrated humanitarian assistance from abroad.

Last year it suspended travel authorisations for aid groups trying to reach around a million victims of powerful Cyclone Mocha that hit the west of the country.

On Saturday, the UN’s Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in Myanmar and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told AFP they could not currently comment on the junta’s request.

Heavy monsoon rains lash Southeast Asia every year, but human-made climate change is causing more intense weather patterns that can make destructive floods more likely.

Climate change is causing typhoons to form closer to the coast, intensify faster and stay longer over land, according to a study published in July.

Flood-affected residents use tyre tubes as flotation devices in Taungoo, Myanmar’s Bago region on September 14, 2024, following heavy rains in the aftermath of Typhoon Yagi. Typhoon Yagi brought a colossal deluge of rain that has inundated a swathe of northern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, triggering deadly landslides and widespread river flooding.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Myanmar’s junta chief made a rare request Saturday (September 14, 2024) for foreign aid to cope with deadly floods that have displaced hundreds of thousands of people who have already endured three years of war.

Floods and landslides have killed almost 300 people in Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand in the wake of Typhoon Yagi, which dumped a colossal deluge of rain 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 Friday, piling further misery on the country where war has raged since the military seized power in 2021.

In Taungoo — around an hour south of the capital Naypyidaw — residents paddled makeshift rafts on floodwaters lapping around a Buddhist pagoda.

Rescuers drove a speedboat through the waters, lifting sagging electricity lines and broken tree branches with a long pole.

“I lost my rice, chickens, and ducks,” said farmer Naung Tun, who had brought his three cows to higher ground near Taungoo after floodwaters innundated his village.

“I don’t care about the other belongings. Nothing else is more important than the lives of people and animals,” he told AFP.

Flee by any means

The rains in the wake of typhoon Yagi sent people across Southeast Asia fleeing by any means necessary, including by elephant in Myanmar and jetski in Thailand.

“Officials from the government need to contact foreign countries to receive rescue and relief aid to be provided to the victims,” junta chief Min Aung Hlaing said on Friday, according to the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

“It is necessary to manage rescue, relief and rehabilitation measures as quickly as possible,” he was quoted as saying.

Myanmar’s military has previously blocked or frustrated humanitarian assistance from abroad.

Last year it suspended travel authorisations for aid groups trying to reach around a million victims of powerful Cyclone Mocha that hit the west of the country.

At the time the United Nations slammed that decision as “unfathomable.”

AFP has contacted a spokesperson for the UN in Myanmar for comment.

After cyclone Nargis killed at least 138,000 people in Myanmar in 2008, the then-junta was accused of blocking emergency aid and initially refusing to grant access to humanitarian workers and supplies.

‘Terrible experience’

The junta gave a death toll on Friday of 33, while earlier in the day the country’s fire department said rescuers had recovered 36 bodies.

A military spokesman said it had lost contact with some areas of the country and was investigating reports that dozens had been buried in landslides in a gold-mining area in central Mandalay region.

Military trucks carried small rescue boats to flood-hit areas around the military-built capital Naypyidaw on Saturday, AFP reporters said.

“Yesterday we had only one meal,” Naung Tun said from near Taungoo.

“It is terrible to experience flooding because we cannot live our lives well when it happens.”

“It can be okay for people who have money. But for the people who have to work day to day for their meals, it is not okay at all.”

More than 2.7 million people were already displaced in Myanmar by conflict triggered by the junta’s 2021 coup.

Vietnam authorities said Saturday that 262 people were dead and 83 missing.

Images from Laos capital Vientiane, meanwhile, showed houses and buildings inundated by the Mekong river.