On boats or makeshift rafts, Myanmar residents flee severe floods
Torrential rains hit Myanmar in the wake of Typhoon Yagi that smashed into Vietnam at the weekend
CARRYING children on their backs or rowing the elderly on makeshift rafts through rising waters, thousands of Myanmar residents on Thursday (Sep 12) fled severe flooding triggered by the deadly Typhoon Yagi.
Torrential rains have lashed conflict-wracked Myanmar in the wake of Typhoon Yagi that smashed into Vietnam at the weekend, inundating and causing deadly landslides across the region.
Floods have tipped rivers in Myanmar over their danger levels, cut communications and severed the railway between commercial hub Yangon and second city Mandalay.
In Taungoo town about 220 kilometres from Yangon, around 600 people were sheltering in a school building after fleeing their homes near the surging Sittaung river, local rescuers told AFP.
“It’s worse this time. It’s nothing like before,” said one 76-year-old lady at the school who did not want to give her name.
“The water came halfway up our house.”
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“We left some stuff behind. I don’t think about it anymore. We got here to save ourselves. We brought some pots and pans with us. The rest we left on the bar under the roof. I don’t care if they survive the water or not.”
Junta authorities had no “casualty or damage figures yet,” Lay Shwe Zin Oo, director of social welfare, relief and resettlement ministry told AFP.
Authorities had opened “around 50 camps for some 70,000 flood victims” expected near the military-built capital Naypyidaw, Bago region, and in Kayah, Mon and Shan states, she said.
Emergency workers were also rowing boats through towns to evacuate stranded villagers.
Some families piled their belongings and children into rescue boats where they sat under the cover of plastic sheets.
Others carried children on their backs or rowed elderly people through the water on makeshift rafts of tyres and wooden palettes.
“The water has risen so quickly,” another lady at the school told AFP.
“Around 300 feet from the school, it’s at head-height,” she said.
More than 3.3 million people in Myanmar are currently displaced according to the United Nations, with most of them forced to flee their homes by conflict unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup.
More than 200 people have been killed in Vietnam, Laos and Thailand by floods and landslides unleashed by Typhoon Yagi.
The rainy season typically brings months of heavy downpours to the South-east Asian country, but scientists say man-made climate change is making weather patterns more intense.
As the rain pelted down at the school near Taungoo, rescuers distributed dried noodles to a queue of people.
“I am going straight home the moment the water level drops,” the 76-year-old lady said.
“When the water reaches up to my waist, I will go home.” AFP
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