As Southeast Asia continues to grapple with the aftermath of Typhoon Yagi, the region’s death toll has surged past 500, with Myanmar bearing the brunt of the latest casualties.
On Tuesday, state-run newspaper Myanma Alinn reported the floods and landslides in Myanmar caused by last week’s typhoon and seasonal monsoon rains have claimed at least 226 lives, with 77 people missing.
The heavy rains hit the central regions of Mandalay, Magway, Bago and the Ayeyarwaddy Delta; the eastern states Shan, Kayah, Kayin and Mon; and the country’s capital, Naypyitaw.
While some flooded areas have started to see water levels recede, others in the Shan and Kayah states remain critical.
Typhoon Yagi’s path of destruction comes after it hit Vietnam’s borders last week. With winds reaching up to 92 miles per hour, it was the strongest typhoon to hit Vietnam in decades. Before hitting Vietnam, the storm claimed lives in the Philippines and more in southern China, where it caused $102 million in damages, collapsing homes and knocking out power lines across Hainan province.
The storm has since weakened to a tropical depression, but the continuing downpours have caused floods and landslides, leading to hundreds of deaths and dozens of missing people.
Vietnam reported nearly 300 fatalities, while 42 people died in northern Thailand and 4 in Laos. Meanwhile, in the Philippines, 21 lives were lost, with 26 still missing, according to the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance.
Meanwhile, according to Myanma Alinn, the floods damaged more than 160,000 houses, 117 government offices and buildings, 1,040 schools, 386 religious buildings, roads, bridges, power towers and telecom towers in 56 townships.
In addition, the military government announced that nearly 240,000 people have been displaced.
In response to the floods, 438 temporary relief camps have been opened for more than 160,000 flood victims, Myanma Alinn reported.
Aung Shine Oo/AP
Myanmar, already crippled by a civil war, faces additional challenges in assessing the full scale of the disaster. Since the military seized power from the elected government in 2021, the ongoing conflict has hampered the accounting of casualties. According to the Associated Press, independent analysts suggest the military controls less than half the nation’s territory.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that an estimated 631,000 people in Myanmar are affected by widespread flooding, with water levels still critical in certain regions.
Newsweek reached out to OCHA via an online email form for comment.
Already grappling with 3.4 million displaced people at the beginning of September due to ongoing war and unrest, the country now faces an even more dire humanitarian situation, according to OCHA.
The floods damaged more than 259,000 hectares (about 640,000 acres) of agricultural land in rural areas, exacerbating concerns over food security.
The U.N.’s humanitarian affairs agency said food, drinking water, medicine, clothes, dignity kits, and shelters are all urgent needs for the flood victims, but alleviation efforts are hampered by blocked roads, damaged bridges and armed clashes.
Myanmar’s ruling military government, led by Vice Senior General Soe Win, announced that international aid has begun arriving from other countries and that some humanitarian assistance from the Association of Southeast Asia will soon arrive.
This is not the first time Myanmar has been hit with similar damaging weather. In 2008, Cyclone Nargis claimed over 138,000 lives.
Experts warn that storms like Yagi could become more frequent and severe due to climate change.
“Warmer ocean waters provide more energy to fuel the storms, leading to increased wind speeds and heavier rainfall,” Benjamin Horton, director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore, told The Associated Press last week.
This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.
