The death toll from flooding in Myanmar triggered by Typhoon Yagi has spiked to 226 in just over a week, state media reported on Tuesday.
About 77 people are still missing, state media in the junta-ruled Myanmar said.
Areas including the capital, Naypyitaw, the second largest city of Mandalay and parts of Shan state were among those hit hardest by the floods.
Conditions obstructed much-needed aid deliveries
The flooding has affected approximately 631,000 people across the southeast Asian country, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) disaster response agency said.
The agency added that blocked roads and damaged bridges were all severely hindering relief efforts even as food, drinking water, shelter and clothes were urgently needed.
Over 150,000 homes were flooded, Global New Light of Myanmar, the newspaper of the military government, reported.
“A total of 388 relief camps were opened in nine regions and states, and the well-wishers donated drinking water, food and clothes,” the state newspaper said.
Myanmar’s state TV said nearly 260,000 hectares (640,000 acres) of rice paddies and other crops had been destroyed in the flooding.
Roughly a third of the country’s 55 million people already need humanitarian aid in the wake of the conflict triggered by a 2021 coup that saw the powerful military overthrow the civilian government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
“Affected areas include camps for displaced people, including children, who were already struggling with limited services due to ongoing conflict,” The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in a statement.
Typhoon Yagi leaves Southeast Asia battered
Typhoon Yagi is the strongest storm to strike Asia this year.
Hundreds of thousands of people across southeast Asia have been forced to flee in the past week as rains from the typhoon cause rivers and creeks to swell beyond bursting point.
In Vietnam, the storm killed 292 people and 38 are missing.
Authorities said over 230,000 homes have been damaged and 280,000 hectares of crops destroyed.
In Thailand, where the northern provinces were hit hard, deaths rose to 15 on Tuesday, as per data from the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s administration has announced a financial aid package of up to $6,000 per household for those affected by the floods.
This report first appeared on DW.
