Torrential rain has left Sri Lanka and parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra, southern Thailand and northern Malaysia under water
Flooding and landslides have killed at least 954 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Malaysia following tropical storms in recent days, with efforts under way to help thousands affected by the extreme weather.
Arriving in North Sumatra on Monday, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said the government’s priority was “how to immediately send the necessary aid”.
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“There are several isolated villages that, God willing, we can reach,” Prabowo said, adding that the government was deploying helicopters and aircraft to aid the relief effort.
Prabowo has come under increasing pressure to declare a national emergency in response to flooding and landslides that have killed at least 442 people, with hundreds more missing.
Unlike his Sri Lankan counterpart, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Prabowo has so far refrained from publicly calling for international assistance.
Indonesia’s government has sent two hospital ships and three warships carrying aid to some of the worst-hit areas, where many roads remain impassable.
In Sungai Nyalo village, about 100km (62 miles) from West Sumatra’s capital Padang, floodwaters had mostly receded on Sunday, leaving homes, vehicles and crops coated in thick grey mud.
“Most villagers chose to stay; they didn’t want to leave their houses behind,” Idris, 55, who, like many Indonesians, goes by one name, told the AFP news agency.
Sri Lanka seeks aid
Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, the government has called for international aid and is using military helicopters to reach people stranded by flooding and landslides triggered by Cyclone Ditwah.
At least 334 people have been killed, Sri Lanka’s disaster agency said on Sunday, with many more still missing.
A helicopter pilot “tragically lost his life” while making an emergency landing “during a mission to support flood-affected communities in Lunuwila,” north of Colombo, Sri Lanka’s Air Force said in a post on Facebook on Monday.
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.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who declared a state of emergency to deal with the disaster, pledged to build back.
“We are facing the largest and most challenging natural disaster in our history,” Dissanayake said in an address to the nation.
“Certainly, we will build a better nation than what existed before.”
Death toll rises in southern Thailand
Thai authorities on Monday said the death toll from ongoing flooding in the south of the country had risen to at least 176 people.
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, according to AFP.
Across the border in Malaysia, where heavy rains also inundated large stretches of land in Perlis state, two people were killed.
Year of deadly floods across Asia
This week’s floods and landslides are the latest extreme weather events to devastate Southeast Asian countries in recent weeks, including two typhoons that hit the Philippines within a week of each other last month, killing at least 242 people.
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.
Climate change is increasing the intensity and frequency of storms and producing more heavy rain events because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture.
