UCAN 38,000 people displaced following worst rains in 30 years
UCAN NEWS REPORT: Eastern Myanmar has been hit by heavy monsoon rains over the past week (AFP photo/Yamounnar)
- Thomas Toe, Yangon
- Myanmar
- Flooding in southeastern Myanmar has killed at least three people and left one missing, state media said today.
The worst rains in 30 years in Kayin and Mon states on Myanmar’s border with Thailand also displaced 38,000 people as rice fields and bridges were washed away.
People have been sheltering in 113 relief camps since the rains hit on July 27, said state-runMyanmar Ahlin.
Mahn Panthi, a spokesman for the Karen National Union, the political wing of a Kayin ceasefire group, said that they had counted four dead so far “and the death toll may be more than the official figures.”
Henry, an aid worker with German agency Malteser International based in Kayin state’s capital Hpa-an, said that large numbers of displaced people have started to return home.
But many houses remained flooded, he added, meaning that relief aid is still required even as water levels in the Salween River continued to drop.
“Local authorities, NGOs and private donors have reached out to the relief camps supporting [the provision of] food and water,” he said.
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