Floods in southern Myanmar have caused more than 10,000 people to be displaced and caused damage, with electricity and traffic cut off.
According to the AP and AFP on the 10th, Myanmar’s state-run broadcaster MRTV said the previous day that 14,000 residents in the Bago area, about 68 kilometers northeast of the largest city, Yangon, were evacuated to 36 relief centers due to flooding.
Authorities said the heavy rains since last week caused flooding, and no deaths have been reported so far.
But private charities and rescue teams said they had recovered some of the bodies. Myanmar’s military controls information in the event of a disaster and does not disclose the exact number of victims.
The rescue team said the low-lying areas of the Bago area were submerged up to 2.3 meters and the city was 1.2 meters, adding, “Almost all areas of the village were flooded due to the worst flooding.”
The rain in the region for 24 hours from the 7th to the 8th was about 200mm, the highest in 59 years.
The departure of trains from Yangon was canceled due to power outages and railroad flooding, and the route linking the second city of Mandalay to the south was also suspended.
Floods often occur in Myanmar from August to September, the rainy season. In recent years, the weather has become increasingly extreme.
In August, flooding in the eastern and western regions caused more than 60,000 people to suffer from flood damage and killed five others.
Amid abnormal climate phenomena around the world, temperatures in the Bago area rose to 42.7 degrees Celsius in June, the highest in 59 years.
In northern Vietnam, three people died and one went missing due to flooding the previous day.
Three people, including children, were killed when a landslide occurred in Yanbai Province in north-central Vietnam, and one person was missing in Tai Nguyen Province.
In Vietnam, 98 people have died or gone missing in floods and landslides this year.
EJ SONG
US ASIA JOURNAL
