Local residents wade through a flooded road in Bago, 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Yangon, Myanmar, Saturday, August 1, 2015.
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Authorities in Myanmar said the death toll from flash floods and landslides caused by weeks of unrelenting rain had risen to 46, with some 200,000 affected and villagers in remote areas forced to use canoes and makeshift rafts.
The rains in Myanmar come days after at least 17 people were killed in floods in Vietnam.
Myanmar’s president has declared a state of emergency in four regions after heavy floods left 27 people dead.
In Rakhine state, along Myanmar’s southwestern coast, the U.N.’s humanitarian agency said Saturday that there are reports of “extensive damage” to camps around Sittwe, where 100,000 people already displaced by conflict in Myanmar have been staying.
The floods appear to have spared Thai nationals, with no one reported killed so far.
In Myanmar itself, around 150,000 homes and fields have been decimated, leaving people stranded in remote villages and destroying their livelihoods in a disaster testing the government’s limited relief operations.
Torrential rains have triggered flooding elsewhere in India including in worst-hit western Gujarat where the death toll has hit 53.
The budget for assistance to flood victims will be discussed at a cabinet meeting today, said Maj Gen Weerachon. 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.
All but one of Myanmar’s 14 provinces were affected by the rains, and aid groups were struggling to reach those affected, a social welfare ministry director said.
In Manipur, which borders western Myanmar’s Chin state, at least twenty people were killed in a landslide triggered by incessant rain in Chandel district, the Press Trust of India reported.
In Vietnam, rescuers were battling toxic mudslides from flood-hit coal mines in northern Quang Ninh, home to the Unesco-listed Halong Bay tourist site.
In a statement, it described as particularly vulnerable the displaced persons living in Rakhine state, which it counted at 140,000 people.
Communities in Chin, Shan and Rakhine States have been severely affected by landslides caused by the flooding.
The organisation has dispatched assessment teams to affected areas which can be reached, to identify the priority needs of children and families in terms of water and sanitation, health care, and nutrition.
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Flooding is common during Myanmar’s annual monsoon season, which is usually between late May and mid-October.
