YANGON: The toll from flash floods and landslides in Myanmar after days of torrential rain is likely to rise, the UN warned on Sunday, as monsoon downpours brought misery to thousands across the region.

At least 27 people have been killed and more than 150,000 affected by flooding in Myanmar in recent days, with the government declaring the four worst-hit areas in central and western Myanmar as “national disaster-affected regions”.

Scores have also perished in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Vietnam following floods and landslides triggered by heavy seasonal rains.

Rescue work in Myanmar has been hampered by continued downpours and the inaccessibility of many of the remote regions battered by the deluges.

In Kalay, one of the worst-hit towns in the country’s northwest Sagaing region, floodwaters on Sunday reached the roofs of houses and above the height of some coconut trees, a photographer at the scene said.

Vast tracts of farmland had been swallowed up by the floodwaters, turning a normally fertile flat valley into an expansive lake.

An official at Myanmar’s Relief and Resettlement Department who asked not to be named said that at least 166,000 people have now been affected by the floods.

But the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the real figure was likely to be “significantly higher” because many areas “have still not been reached or reported on by assessment teams”.

OCHA said the official death toll of 27 was also likely an underestimate.

“As further information becomes available, this figure is also expected to increase,” the statement warned.

Seasonal monsoon rains have also brought death and destruction to other Asian nations.

Two of the worst-hit areas in Myanmar are the remote and impoverished western states of Chin and Rakhine.

About 20 people were feared dead after a hill collapsed onto a village in India’s northeastern state of Manipur on Saturday following incessant rain, a local magistrate said.

Rescuers were clawing through mud and debris searching for bodies as well as survivors of the accident in the remote village in Chandel district bordering Myanmar.

“So far we have reports of 20 people killed when a hillock caved and trapped the villagers,” magistrate Memi Mary said from Chandel town.

Published in Dawn, August 3rd, 2015

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