The death toll from devastating floods and landslides in south-east Asia reportedly climbed past 460 on Saturday as clean-up and search-and-rescue operations got under way in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. Heavy monsoon rain overwhelmed swathes of the three countries this week, killing hundreds and leaving thousands stranded, many on rooftops awaiting rescue.
Rescuers in Indonesia were struggling to reach the worst-affected areas of Sumatra island, where at least 303 people have died and 279 are still missing. Rescuers in North Sumatra recovered another 31 bodies on Saturday, a spokesperson for the provincial police said.
In West Sumatra 61 fatalities had been recorded, and 90 people were missing, a spokesperson for the region’s disaster mitigation agency said late on Friday. In Aceh province the death toll was at least 35 people, according to figures released by the agency. More than 3,500 police were deployed to search for people still missing and help distribute aid to more than 28,400 who fled to temporary government shelters across the province.
About 80,000 people have been evacuated and hundreds are still stranded in three provinces across Sumatra island, Indonesia’s western-most area, the national disaster agency’s head, Suharyanto, told a news conference, adding that a cloud-seeding operation would begin in West Sumatra to reduce the rainfall, most of which had already subsided by Saturday.
In Thailand, more than 1.4 million households – 3.8 million people – have been affected by the floods, the department of disaster prevention and mitigation said on Saturday. In southern Thailand, water levels reached 3 metres in Songkhla province and killed at least 145 people in one of the worst floods in a decade. The country’s death toll across eight provinces has risen to 162, the government said on Saturday. Workers at one hospital in hard-hit Hat Yai moved bodies into refrigerated trucks after the morgue exceeded capacity.
The prime minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, visited a shelter for evacuees in the district on Friday and told reporters he acknowledged the government’s shortcomings in flood management. “I really have to apologies to them for letting this happen during the time I am in government,” he said in footage broadcast on Amarin TV.
“The next step is to prevent the situation from deteriorating,” he added, announcing a two-week time frame for the district’s clean-up. The Thai government rolled out relief measures for those affected by the flooding, including compensation of up to 2m baht ($62,000, £46,800) for households that lost family members.
As flood waters receded, shop-owner Rachane Remsringam picked through rubbish strewn between the aisles of his general goods store, lamenting hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses. His store, Madam Yong, was looted and vandalized in the wake of the disaster, he said.
There has been growing public criticism of Thailand’s flood response and two local officials have been suspended over their alleged failures. An MP from the opposition People’s party criticized the administration, saying it “wrongly estimated the situation” and made “errors in handling the flood crisis”.
One victim of the flood, Amphorn Kaeophengkro, told Reuters she and seven members of her family spent 48 hours perched atop a table, a window frame and a washing machine on the second floor of her home in the city of Hat Yai, which received 335mm (13 inches) of rain last Friday – its highest single-day tally in 300 years.
“We weren’t thinking about anything else except surviving,” the 44-year-old told Reuters by candlelight, as her family began to clean their dwelling after the water had receded. Two people were killed in Malaysia by flooding caused by heavy rain that left stretches of northern Perlis state under water. The annual monsoon season, typically between June and September, often brings heavy rain, triggering landslides and flash floods.
A tropical storm has exacerbated conditions, and the tolls in Indonesia and Thailand rank among the highest in floods in those countries in recent years. Climate change has affected storm patterns, including the duration and intensity of the season, leading to heavier rainfall, flash flooding and stronger wind gusts.
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