YANGON – Monsoon floods have now killed 12 people and displaced almost 150,000 across the country, the National Disaster Management Committee announced today.
According to a statement, the government is in the process of setting up 326 temporary camps for displaced people in Tanintharyi, Bago and Magway regions and Karen and Mon states.
Two weeks of almost incessant heavy rains have raised water levels in many rivers and other bodies of water, causing seasonal floods during the last week of July.
Bago Region has been the most badly affected area, where a total of 95,107 people have been displaced from their homes. In Karen and Mon states, 25,563 and 19,550 people have been displaced, respectively while 6,583 people have been displaced in Tanintharyi Region and 464 people in Magway Region.
According to the statement, 53 temporary camps have opened in Karen, 50 in Mon, 186 in Bago and seven in Tanintharyi.
Heavy monsoon rains have also destroyed large areas of paddy fields and farmland, but the government has not yet announced official data on the damage.
Every year, Myanmar is hit by severe flooding during the monsoon season that also results in landslides and extensive damage to paddy fields, farmland and infrastructure across the country.
Myanmar suffered the worst monsoon flooding in 2015, when 100 people died and at least 330,000 were displaced, according to statistics collected by ReliefWeb, an information site run by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
