At least 10,000 people, including internally displaced persons (IDPs), have been lost homes or crops due to devastating flooding in Kayah state’s Loikaw and southern Shan state’s Moebye townships, local residents and aid groups reported on Monday.
Many people have been forced to evacuate to higher ground and are in urgent need of shelter and food.
However, road blocks and the presence of junta infantry in the area make it almost impossible to deliver assistance to those driven from their homes by flooding, aid groups said.
A dozen villages in Loikaw Township and some parts of the state’s capital, Loikaw, have been hit by the most severe flooding in 15 years, the Karenni Human Rights Group said.
“Houses and farmlands in more than 10 villages in Loikaw have been inundated with flood water since last week,” said Ko Benya, the spokesperson of the rights group.
Flood victims from Noe Koe, Daw Paw Ka Le and War Yi Kaw Khu village tracts in Loikaw urgently need shelter and food, volunteers trying to help them said.
The recent flooding was caused by a massive discharge of water from Moe Bye Dam in southern Shan State after heavy rainfall caused the level of its reservoir to surge, Ko Benya said.
Facebook posts show homes and farmland in Loikaw’s Hpa Yar Hpyu Village submerged by floodwater.
At least 100 makeshift tents for IDPs were also submerged in Moebye Township, volunteers said.
The Balu Chaung River has breached its banks and forced entire villages to flee, they said.
Crops were also destroyed by nonstop rainfall in Demoso and Loikaw townships. “We lost our crops due to heavy rainfall and flooding,” a farmer from Demoso Township said.
Last week, widespread flooding hit Bago, Mandalay and Yangon regions, displacing thousands of residents and disrupting transport.
In August, torrential rain and flash flooding caused landslides on the Asia Highway between Myawaddy and Kawkariek townships in Karen state, causing some elevated sections to collapse, which disrupted trade and transportation in the state.
Nearly 400 villages in seven townships were inundated by massive flooding in Rakhine State in August.
