At least 19 people were killed in Burma (also known as Myanmar) after heavy rains triggered floods in and around the war-torn country’s capital city, with rescuers moving some of the 3,600 people displaced to safer areas on boats, according to the national fire service.
Adverse weather brought on by Typhoon Yagi, the strongest storm to hit Asia this year, has killed more than 230 people in Vietnam and Thailand, and flood waters from swollen rivers have inundated cities in both countries.
Burma has been in turmoil since a military coup in February 2021 and violence has engulfed large parts of the impoverished country.
An armed rebellion, comprising of new resistance groups and established ethnic minority armies, is challenging the well-armed military, amid a crippling economic crisis that could be exacerbated by the floods.
About 162 sq km of area around the capital Naypyitaw was flooded on Thursday, according to satellite imagery analysis by the U.N.-backed Myanmar Information Management Unit (MIMU.)
Another 366 sq km around Mandalay, Burma’s second largest city, also appeared to be under water, according to the analysis.
“In total, 3,602 flood-affected people from 30 locations were rescued and moved,” the fire department said in a Facebook post late on Thursday on its Naypyitaw operations, adding 19 people had been killed.
Some buildings were swamped by flood waters and residents, including women and children, were stranded on rooftops before they were brought down into boats by rescue workers, photographs posted by the department showed.
About a third of Burma’s 55 million people require humanitarian assistance but many aid agencies, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, cannot operate in many areas because of access restrictions and security risks.