Eight people who fled fighting in Karenni State have been killed by flash floods in neighboring southern Shan State’s Nyaung Shwe Township, where flooding has left some 6,000 residents homeless.
The victims were among over 100 internally displaced people (IDPs) from the Karenni capital Loikaw who had been sheltering in Nyaung Shwe for a year after fleeing fighting between the junta and resistance forces, according to residents and rescue teams.
The group was preparing dinner by the creek in Inntein village, just west of the international tourism hotspot of Inle Lake, when they were swept way in a flash flood on September 12.
“The river suddenly burst its banks and a group were caught in the torrent, which was 7 to 8 feet deep. Eight people lost their lives. Houses were also destroyed in the flood,” a rescue team member told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday.
Last week, torrential rain unleashed by the remnants of Typhoon Yagi triggered a sudden rise in Inle Lake’s water level, submerging almost half of Nyaung Shwe Township’s 445 villages.
Nearly 6,000 residents have been evacuated to higher ground, including Nyaung Shwe town, with the help of local rescue teams.
As of Tuesday, electricity and mobile phone services were down while flood victims lacked food, drinking water and medicine. Many were staying at temporary shelters in local monasteries.
Houses along Inle Lake are built on stilts about 1.5 meters (5 feet) high.
“These houses are no longer habitable,” rescue team member Ko Thet Paing Soe told The Irrawaddy.
An Inle resident said the current floodwaters have risen about three feet above the highwater mark set during flooding in 1992.
Inle Lake is fed by 19 waterways including, nine main creeks, but has only one drainage point at Mobye dam, Ko Thet Paing Soe explained. The dam controls the flow to Myanmar’s biggest hydroelectric plant, Lawpita, meaning the floodwaters cannot be drained for several weeks.
“The water level has only dropped about one inch. Until Monday, it was over nine feet [2.74 meters] deep across most of the Inle area. The rain had stopped but the water level did not shift,” Ko Thet Paing Soe said.
The military regime, which still controls the area, has remained silent about the severe flooding while failing to deploy a rescue operation, residents said.
Flooding has inundated nine states and regions across Myanmar following last week’s torrential rain. The junta announced on Monday night that a total of 226 people had been killed in the disaster.
