Military forces in Sri Lanka and Indonesia aid flood victims as the death toll from torrential rains across four Asian nations approaches 1,000
PADANG: Militaries in Sri Lanka and Indonesia have been deployed to assist victims of catastrophic flooding that has killed nearly 1,000 people across four Asian nations.
Separate weather systems brought torrential, extended rainfall to Sri Lanka and large parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra, southern Thailand and northern Malaysia last week.
Arriving in North Sumatra on Monday, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said “the worst has passed, hopefully”.
The government’s priority is now to immediately send necessary aid, with a focus on several isolated villages, he added.
Prabowo faces increasing pressure to declare a national emergency in response to flooding and landslides that have killed at least 442 people.
Hundreds more remain missing in Indonesia following the disaster.
The toll is the deadliest natural disaster in Indonesia since a 2018 earthquake and tsunami killed more than 2,000 people in Sulawesi.
The government has sent three warships carrying aid and two hospital ships to some of the worst-hit areas.
In Sri Lanka, the government called for international aid and used military helicopters to reach people stranded by flooding and landslides.
At least 340 people have been killed, Sri Lankan officials said on Monday, with many more still missing.
Floodwaters in the capital Colombo peaked overnight, raising hopes that waters would begin receding.
Officials said the extent of the damage in the worst-affected central region was only just being revealed.
In Ma Oya, just north of the capital, Hasitha Wijewardena said he was struggling to clean up after the floods.
“The water has gone down, but the house is now full of mud,” he told local reporters, appealing for military help.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake declared a state of emergency to deal with the disaster.
“We are facing the largest and most challenging natural disaster in our history,” he said in an address to the nation.
The losses are the worst in Sri Lanka since the devastating 2004 Asian tsunami that killed around 31,000 people there.
Military helicopters have been deployed to airlift stranded residents and deliver food, though one crashed just north of Colombo on Sunday evening.
Selvi, 46, a resident of the Colombo suburb of Wennawatte, left her flooded home on Sunday.
“My house is completely flooded. I don’t know where to go, but I hope there is some safe shelter where I can take my family,” she told AFP.
Much of Asia is in its annual monsoon season, which often brings heavy rain.
The flooding was exacerbated by a rare tropical storm that dumped heavy rain on Sumatra island in particular.
Climate change has also increased the intensity of storms and produced more heavy rain events.
The waves of rain caused flooding that killed at least 176 people in southern Thailand, authorities said Monday.
The Thai government has rolled out relief measures, but there has been growing public criticism of the flood response.
Two local officials have been suspended over their alleged failures in the response.
Across the border in Malaysia, heavy rains inundated large stretches of land in Perlis state, killing two people. – AFP
