Weeks of unrelenting rain has deluged swathes of northern and western Myanmar, trapping people in remote villages and stretching the country’s already threadbare rescue capabilities.
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Myanmar has declared a state of emergency in four regions after Monsoon rain that caused floods left at least 27 people dead.
“More than 7,000 people are sheltering in rescue camps at 23 monasteries in Minbyar town”.
The government’s Relief and Resettlement Department estimates 110,000 people have been severely affected by the floods, particularly in the Sagaing region and Kachin and Shan states.
Western Rakhine and Chin states are among the four worst affected areas and on Friday President Sein declared them “national disaster affected regions”, according to the state-backed Global New Light of Myanmar (GNLM) newspaper.
The UN said the military in Myanmar is working together with local aid groups to carry out rescue and relief operations.
“I’ve never experienced such a awful flood in my life”, Thein Tun, a 57-year-old retired teacher, told Reuters by telephone from Mrauk-U in western Rakhine state, one of the worst-hit areas yet to receive aid.
Many live in makeshift tents fashioned from tarpaulin and have limited access to food, drinking water and medicine.
Local journalist goes the extra mile to show viewers the story scene by wading into the waters.
Myanmar is annually struck by monsoon rains that are a lifeline for farmers, but those along with frequent powerful cyclones can also prove deadly, with landslides and flash floods a common occurrence. 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.
More than 400,000 acres of farmland have been inundated and over 30,000 destroyed, as mentioned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Immigration, while rail lines, roads and bridges have been cut off.
The agency said the figures are expected to increase as more information becomes available, because many areas have not been reached or reported on by assessment teams.
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There is particular concern about Rakhine, where a tropical storm was moving from neighboring Bangladesh.
