Myanmar flood death toll climbs to 88

The death toll has risen to 88 from 74, according to Phyu Lei Lei Tun of the social welfare ministry, although this could climb again as relief teams reach isolated areas, some of which remain cut off more than a week after the disaster struck.
Channel NewsAsia 7 Aug 15;

NYAUNG DON: The death toll from severe flooding across Myanmar has risen to 88, officials said on Friday (Aug 7), as rising waters swallowed more homes in low-lying regions in some of the poorest parts of the country.

More than 330,000 people have been affected by torrential monsoon rains that triggered flash floods and landslides, cutting off communications as the deluge engulfed roads and destroyed bridges.

Residents have raced to bolster sand-bag defences along the Irrawaddy river in the southwest as floodwaters swell the mighty waterway, swamping dozens of villages as the waters drain from further north.

"Nothing like this has happened before, but I am not the only one suffering," said Soe Min Paing, a fisherman from Kyauk Taing village in Nyaung Don township, whose home has been inundated.

The death toll has risen to 88 from 74 on Thursday, according to Phyu Lei Lei Tun of the social welfare ministry, although this could climb again as relief teams reach isolated areas, some of which remain cut off more than a week after the disaster struck.

Impoverished western Rakhine state has suffered the highest number of fatalities so far, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar reported, with at least 55 killed after Cyclone Komen tore across the Bay of Bengal last week.

The heavy monsoon downpours have caused devastation across large parts of South and Southeast Asia in recent weeks, claiming hundreds of lives and displacing millions.

In Myanmar, where 12 out of 14 states and regions have suffered flooding, international aid has stepped up in recent days following an official government request for help.

Myanmar's previous junta government was accused of indifference in its sluggish response to Cyclone Nargis in May 2008, a crisis which left nearly 140,000 people dead or missing.

The quasi-civilian government which replaced outright military rule in 2011 has been eager to show it is mobilising.

But many of those affected by the flooding appear not to be relying on government help, either trying to cope alone or turning to local monasteries or community groups.

Authorities have insisted that crucial elections set for November 8 will go ahead despite the disruption caused by the floods even as they try to assess the scale of the damage.

More than 200,000 acres of farmland have been ruined and large numbers of animals killed as well as the thousands of homes lost, according to state media.

Fears are also growing over malnutrition as some of the worst-hit areas are among the country's poorest, according to the UN's World Food Programme.

"Thousands of people have lost homes, livelihoods, crops and existing food and seed stocks. Food security will be seriously affected," WFP Country Director Dom Scalpelli said in a statement.

In a statement released Friday the European Union announced the EU and its Member States would donate an extra €4.5 million (US$5 million) in emergency aid to Myanmar in response to the government's appeal for international assistance.

- AFP/ec

In flooded Myanmar, government clears path for aid workers
ALISA TANG Reuters 7 Aug 15;

BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Myanmar's government has smoothed travel for aid workers to flood-hit areas of the country, even giving them lifts by helicopter, boat and plane - in sharp contrast to the restricted humanitarian access after a massive cyclone in 2008.

After Cyclone Nargis, which ploughed across Myanmar's southern delta region in May 2008, killing nearly 140,000 people, it took three weeks for the then-military government to grant access to international aid workers, and even then under tight restrictions.

The current monsoon floods, that began in late June, have prompted an urgent response from Myanmar's reformist government which appealed for international help on Monday, days after the crisis escalated with lashing rains.

"The fact that the government has made a call for international assistance is an indication that they're more receptive to support from the international community," Patrick Fuller, regional spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC), told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The floods, which have killed 88 people and affected 330,000 across the country, are the first big test of the ability of the reformist government – which came to power in 2011 - to coordinate humanitarian assistance.

Mike Bruce, spokesman for Plan International, said there had been no reports of the government hindering access for international aid agencies or their staff.

Under normal circumstances, international staff of aid agencies working in Myanmar need travel authorizations to go to various parts of the country, and that process can take days, if not weeks, said Pierre Peron, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

"They (government officials) have understood that in a crisis like this, you need to be able to get staff to the affected areas as quickly as possible, and humanitarian staff may be coming from other countries, in surge," Peron said.

"They are facilitating those travel authorizations (to allow) staff to get on planes and travel to locations that they need to go to... it is much easier and much quicker."

PRACTICE AND PREPAREDNESS

Peron attributed the faster response to a new emergency operations center set up last year, and recent drills with U.N. agencies, non-governmental organizations and the government.

The operations center - set up with support from the United States and Japan - has helped with travel authorizations and has played a critical role in managing the vast amounts of flood data, Peron said.

"It can often be quite chaotic when you get lots of information from different sources and different parts of country," he said.

"Being able to prioritize and collate that information to be able to use that to respond most effectively and be sure you're coordinating the most important humanitarian needs - that is an important role the EOC is playing."

Peron said the practice exercises, with earthquake and cyclone scenarios, put in place contingency plans and identified relevant contacts at government ministries.

"If you need a helicopter to get to a certain place, do you know who to speak to to get that to happen? Thanks to the simulation exercises, we do," Peron said.

Aid workers were bracing for secondary flooding in the low-lying southern delta region as flood waters flowed into the area, swelling rivers to dangerously high levels. Authorities on Thursday urged people to leave the delta.

The U.N. children's agency UNICEF appealed for $9.2 million to fund humanitarian assistance for children affected by the floods, many of them already poor and vulnerable.

The World Food Programme, the U.N. agency that provides food assistance, said the delta region would experience flooding in three to five days.

"We are still in the midst of this disaster," Fuller of IFRC said, adding that the number of people affected was likely to rise.

(Reporting by Alisa Tang, Editing by Ros Russell.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, corruption and climate change. Visit www.trust.org)

Myanmar president urges people to leave delta as floods rise
HNIN YADANA ZAW AND AUNG HLA TUN Reuters 6 Aug 15;

Myanmar's president urged people to leave a low-lying southern delta region on Thursday with rain water that has inundated much of the country flowing into the area threatening further flooding as rivers reached dangerously high levels.

The widespread floods that were triggered last week by heavy monsoon rains have killed 81 people, according to Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement.

President Thein Sein told people living in the Ayeyarwady delta region to seek shelter as swollen rivers rose higher.

"It's best to evacuate to a safe place in advance since natural disasters can't be stopped once they start," he said in a speech broadcast on state television.

About 6.2 million people, 12 percent of Myanmar's population, live in the region, a southwest area where the Ayeyarwady and other rivers branch out into a delta leading to the sea.

Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, despite being near the delta has not experienced flooding.

A Reuters witness in Nyaungdon, a town in Ayeyarwady Region, said some villages were flooded on Thursday with only roofs visible above the water and residents feared waters would rise.

The delta is the country's major rice producing hub, but Soe Tun, Secretary of the Myanmar Rice Federation, said much of the paddy in the area had been spared from flooding.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, 101,000 acres (409 sq km) of paddy in the Ayeyarwady Region have been flooded, but just 180 acres were destroyed.

Country-wide, the impact on a agriculture has been far greater. According to the ministry 1.17 million acres of paddy field have been flooded, with 152,500 acres destroyed.

The government appealed for international assistance on Monday and supplies had started to arrive from abroad.

The call for help marked a change from 2008 when the then-military government shunned most outside aid after a cyclone killed 130,000 people, most in the same delta region.

Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who earlier in the week toured flood hit areas, said international aid and donations needed to be organized to increase effectiveness.

"Generous donations which are uncoordinated tend to go astray or to prove less effective than they might be if they were part of a well laid plan," she said in a video on Facebook.

Kyaw Moe Oo, a deputy director from the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology, said Yangon was not at risk from floods, but the department was monitoring water levels at reservoirs and dams around the city.

(Writing by Timothy Mclaughlin; Editing by Robert Birsel)