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- author, Jessica Rawnsley
- scroll, From BBC News
Heavy rains caused floods and landslides in parts of South Asia, killing about 600 people.
The monsoon season, worsened by tropical storms, has caused one of the worst floods in years, affecting millions of people in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Sri Lanka.
Heavy rains began on Wednesday (11/26) on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. “During the flood, everything disappeared,” a resident of Berwin, Aceh province, told Reuters. “I wanted to save my clothes, but my house collapsed.”
With hundreds still missing, the death toll is expected to rise. Thousands remain isolated, some waiting for rescue on rooftops.
As of Saturday, more than 300 people had died in Indonesia and 160 in Thailand. Malaysia also recorded deaths.
In Sri Lanka, which was hit by a hurricane, more than 130 people were killed and about 170 others were missing, according to the authorities.
An extremely rare tropical cyclone, called Cyclone Sinyar, caused landslides and catastrophic flooding in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, sweeping away homes and submerging thousands of buildings.
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Nearly 300 people are still missing after floods devastated Sumatra, the Indonesian Disaster Management Agency reported on Saturday (29/11).
“The current was very strong, and within seconds it reached the streets and entered homes,” Aceh resident Arini Amalia told the BBC.
She and her grandmother ran to a relative’s house on higher ground. When he returned the next day to try to retrieve some of his belongings, he found the house completely submerged: “It was already flooded.”
In West Sumatra, after waters rose rapidly and submerged his home, Miri Usman said he was “dragged by the current” and clung to a clothesline until he was rescued.
The agency said bad weather conditions had hampered searches, and although tens of thousands of people had been evacuated, hundreds remained isolated.
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In Songkhla province in southern Thailand, waters reached three meters high and at least 145 people died in one of the worst floods in a decade.
According to the government, more than 160 people died in the ten affected states. More than 3.8 million residents were affected.
Hat Yai city recorded 335 mm of rain in one day, the highest amount in 300 years. As the waters began to recede, the death toll rose rapidly.
Agence France-Presse reported that workers at one of the city’s hospitals had to transfer the bodies to refrigerated trucks after the morgue was full.
Thanita Khiawom, a resident of the city, told BBC Thai: “We were stuck in the water for seven days and no one came to help them.”
The government promised relief measures, including compensation of up to 2 million baht ($62,000) to families who lost relatives.
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In neighboring Malaysia, the death toll was much lower, but the damage was no less severe.
The floods caused damage and submerged parts of Perlis state in the north of the country under water. Two people died and tens of thousands were forced to seek shelter.
Sri Lanka is also facing one of the worst climate disasters in recent years, and the government has declared a state of emergency.
The authorities said that more than 15,000 homes were destroyed, and about 78,000 people were forced to leave their homes. They also stated that about a third of the country is without electricity or running water.
Meteorologists say the severe weather in Southeast Asia may have been caused by the interaction between Typhoon Koto in the Philippines and the unusual formation of Typhoon Sinyar in the Strait of Malacca.
The annual monsoon season, which usually falls between June and September, often brings heavy rains.
But climate change has changed the patterns of these storms, including their intensity and duration, resulting in heavier rains, flash floods, and stronger winds.