Asia floods death toll tops 1,100 as troops aid survivors

PADANG, Indonesia: The toll in deadly flooding and landslides across parts of Asia climbed past 1,100 on Monday (Dec 1) as hardest-hit Sri Lanka and Indonesia deployed military personnel to help survivors.

Separate weather systems brought torrential, extended rainfall to the entire island of Sri Lanka and large parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra, southern Thailand and northern Malaysia last week.

Much of the region is currently in its monsoon season but climate change is producing more extreme rain events and turbocharging storms.

The relentless rains left residents clinging to rooftops awaiting rescue by boat or helicopter, and cut entire villages off from assistance.

Arriving in North Sumatra on Monday, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said “the worst has passed, hopefully”.

The government’s “priority now is how to immediately send the necessary aid”, with particular focus on several isolated villages, he added.

Prabowo has come under increasing pressure to declare a national emergency in response to flooding and landslides that have killed at least 593 people, with nearly 470 still missing.

Unlike his Sri Lankan counterpart, he has also not publicly called for international assistance.

The toll is the deadliest in a natural disaster in Indonesia since a massive 2018 earthquake and subsequent tsunami killed over 2,000 people in Sulawesi.

The government has sent three warships carrying aid and two hospital ships to some of the worst-hit areas, where many roads remain impassable.

In North Aceh, 28-year-old Misbahul Munir described walking through water that reached his neck to get back to his parents.

“Everything in the house was destroyed because it was submerged,” he told AFP.

“I have only the clothes I am wearing,” he said, dissolving into tears.

“In other places, there were a lot of people who died. We are grateful that we are healthy.”

“EVERYTHING WENT UNDER”

Floodwaters in the capital Colombo peaked overnight, and with rain now stopped, there were hopes that waters would begin receding.

Some shops and offices began to reopen.

The floodwaters came as a surprise to some around Colombo.

“Every year we experience minor floods, but this is something else,” delivery driver Dinusha Sanjaya told AFP.

“It is not just the amount of water, but how quickly everything went under.”

Officials said the extent of damage in the worst-affected central region was only just being revealed as relief workers cleared roads blocked by fallen trees and mudslides.

UNICEF representative Emma Brigham said access to affected areas remains limited, noting that many roads and bridges have been damaged and communications are limited. 

Speaking to CNA’s Asia Now, she added that the lack of access to clean water had left families in increasingly vulnerable conditions.

UNICEF, she said, is airlifting water purification tablets as officials brace for risks such as diseases once the floodwaters recede and “we see what the true level of destruction has been”.

Brigham noted that children were particularly at risk, pointing out that Sri Lanka was just emerging from an economic crisis, leaving families with “fewer coping mechanisms”.

“Many families have had to leave their homes, leave their belongings and relocate to safer areas … So we want to make sure that those children receive the psychosocial support that they need, that the places that they are staying, the shelters are safe for children and for vulnerable groups.”

“The water has gone down, but the house is now full of mud,” he told local reporters, appealing for military help to clean up.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who declared a state of emergency to deal with the disaster, called the flooding the “largest and most challenging natural disaster in our history.”

The losses and damage are the worst in Sri Lanka since the devastating 2004 Asian tsunami that killed around 31,000 people and left more than a million homeless.

ANGER IN THAILAND

By Sunday afternoon, rain had subsided across Sri Lanka, but low-lying areas of the capital were flooded and authorities were bracing for a major relief operation.

Military helicopters have been deployed to airlift stranded residents and deliver food, though one crashed just north of Colombo on Sunday evening.

Much of Asia is currently in its annual monsoon season, which often brings heavy rain, triggering landslides and flash floods.

But the flooding that hit Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia was also exacerbated by a rare tropical storm that dumped heavy rain on Sumatra island in particular.

The waves of rain caused flooding that killed at least 176 people in southern Thailand, authorities said Monday, one of the deadliest flood incidents in the country in a decade.

The government has rolled out relief measures, but there has been growing public criticism of the flood response, and two local officials have been suspended over their alleged failures.

Across the border in Malaysia, where heavy rains also inundated large stretches of land in Perlis state, two people were killed.