It is a rare measure, but in the face of the ravages of Typhoon Yagi, the Burmese junta was forced to ask for outside help. “Government officials will contact foreign countries to receive relief and assistance for the victims”said the head of the military regime, Min Aung Hlaing, on Friday, September 13, according to the newspaper Myanmar’s new global light.
On the same day, junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun announced that flooding caused by Typhoon Yagi had killed at least 33 people and displaced 1,000 people. “236,649 people”specifying that communications with certain areas were cut off.
This catastrophe further aggravates the misery in this country, which has descended into a humanitarian, security and political crisis since the February 2021 coup against the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. More than 2.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes in Burma due to the ongoing civil conflict.
Migrant workers reportedly disappeared
Authorities are also investigating unconfirmed reports that dozens of migrant workers have gone missing following landslides in a gold mining area in the central Mandalay region, the junta spokesman said.
State media reported that flooding in the region and around the capital, Naypyidaw, had triggered landslides and destroyed power lines, buildings, roads, bridges and homes.
A resident of Sin Thay, near Naypyidaw, told Agence France-Presse on Friday that he had spent the night in a tree with his two children to protect themselves from rising water. In the Mandalay region, villagers used an elephant to reach land unaffected by flooding.
Humanitarian aid blocked in the past
Northern Vietnam, Laos and Thailand were also badly hit by flooding and landslides following Yagi, which brought torrential rain when it hit the region last weekend. Nearly 300 people were killed, including 233 in Vietnam, where many missing could add to the death toll.
In Burma, the junta has in the past blocked international aid or derailed foreign assistance programs. In mid-June 2023, it suspended travel authorizations for humanitarian groups trying to help around a million victims of Cyclone Mocha in western Burma. The United Nations denounced a decision “incomprehensible”.
Back in 2008, when Cyclone Nargis killed at least 138,000 people in the country, the junta was accused of blocking emergency aid and initially refusing to allow in humanitarian workers and supplies.
