Flash floods and landslides in Myanmar have claimed at least 46 lives and affected some 215,000 people, swallowing huge tracts of land in what the United Nations has described as a “major natural disaster”.
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Suspicion of officialdom lingers after Myanmar’s previous junta government was accused of callous indifference in its sluggish response to Cyclone Nargis in May 2008, which left almost 140,000 people dead or missing.
The Myanmar authorities, he announced, had today formally requested worldwide assistance, although the UN and global humanitarian organizations had been working closely with the Myanmar authorities and supporting the humanitarian response since the beginning of the flooding on 30 July.
New devastation is feared in Myanmar as water from the badly flooded central and northern regions flows down rivers to the country’s more populous areas.
The minister said that the flood waters have begun to recede in Rakhine state on the west coast, which suffered some of the worst flooding after being lashed by the tail of Cyclone Komen, which made landfall in Bangladesh late last weeky.
It prompted a rare concession from the government which is particularly concerned about its image just months ahead of a general election in November.
Myanmar is prone to natural disasters such as floods, cyclones and earthquakes. President Thein Sein also visited stricken areas.
The full impact of the flooding on Rakhine State has yet to emerge.
Video footage shot by Reuters on Monday aboard a military helicopter in Rakhine showed hundreds of people rushing through muddy flood waters to collect air dropped supplies.
Strong winds also damaged buildings in exposed coastal camps in Sittwe hosting about 140,000 people, mainly Rohingya Muslims, who were displaced following deadly 2012 unrest between the minority group and Buddhists.
Some affected people blamed mismanagement of irrigation projects and deforestation, mindless logging in recent decades that caused heavy rains in the area.
Main roads running through the state remained impassible and attempts to access cities by helicopter were hampered by the relentless downpours, Ye Htut said.
“Four regions of the country have been declared disaster zones, and some 1,300 schools across the country have been closed”.
The next session of parliament, scheduled to start Aug.10, has been postponed indefinitely because lawmakers will be helping people in their constituencies, the speaker of the lower house, Thura Shwe Mann, said Monday.
It also noted that losses of stored grain and livestock were expected to disrupt the planting season and endanger long-term food security.
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Landslides in Chin state – south of Sagaing – have destroyed 700 homes in the state capital Hakha, which is completely cut off from surrounding areas, the report added.
