Reports say rescue efforts on Saturday were hampered by torrential rains and landslides.
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Thein Sein, Myanmar’s president, headed to devastated rural areas the place a state of emergency was declared after the lethal monsoon rains displaced tens of hundreds of individuals, flooded swathes of paddy subject and prompted fears of dams collapsing.
One of the hardest-hit states is Rakhine, on the Bay of Bengal, OCHA reported.
The death toll exacted by the devastating floods in Myanmar continued to rise as a landslide in India’s Manipur state close to the border with the country aka Burma buried a village and killed 20 people, according to the Times of India.
“More people are likely to be affected by flooding and strong winds over the next few days, in particular in Rakhine State”, OCHA said in a statement late Thursday.
Rescuers were Sunday clawing through mud and debris searching for bodies as well as survivors of the accident in the remote village in Chandel district bordering Myanmar.
The rains in Myanmar come days after at least 17 people were killed in floods in Vietnam.
The UN said the military in Myanmar is working together with local aid groups to carry out rescue and relief operations.
In Maungdaw township in Rakhine, homes and workplace buildings have been destroyed, timber uprooted and broken roads sealed off as a result of violent storms, an area authorities official advised AFP information company, including that rescue camps have been opened at monasteries.
Many live in makeshift tents fashioned from tarpaulin and have limited access to food, drinking water and medicine. “Our road communication is cut”, Khin Zaw Win, a resident in Minbyar, a town in northern Rakhine, told AFP news agency.
Myanmar is annually struck by monsoon rains that are a lifeline for farmers, but the rains and frequent powerful cyclones can also prove deadly, with landslides and flash floods a common occurrence.
A United Nations (UN) representative said on Saturday that assessment teams had been dispatched to the worst-hit areas to identify immediate relief priorities.
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This year’s floods have destroyed at least 30,000 acres of farmland, as stated by GNLM, and damaged a further 73,000. The country has only basic infrastructure and medical facilities and is ill-equipped to deal with disasters, as shown when Cyclone Nargis battered the Irrawaddy Delta in 2008, killing 130,000 people.
