Sri Lanka and Indonesia have deployed military personnel to help victims of devastating floods that have killed nearly 1,000 people in the four countries in Asia in recent days.
Separate weather systems caused torrential, extended rainfall across the entire island of Sri Lanka and large parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra, southern Thailand and northern Malaysia last week.
“Hopefully the worst is over,” said Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, who arrived in North Sumatra on Monday.
The government’s “priority now is how to send the necessary aid immediately”, he said, with a particular focus on the many isolated villages.
Prabowo is under increasing pressure to declare a national emergency in response to floods and landslides that have killed at least 442 people, with hundreds missing.
Unlike his Sri Lankan counterpart, he has also not publicly called for international aid. The death toll is the deadliest in a natural disaster in Indonesia since a massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami in 2018 killed more than 2,000 people in Sulawesi.
The government has sent three warships carrying aid and two hospital ships to some of the worst-hit areas, where many roads remain impassable.
Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, the government called for international aid and used military helicopters to reach people stranded by floods and landslides caused by Cyclone Ditvaah.
Sri Lankan officials said on Monday that at least 340 people had been killed, while many were still missing. Flood waters in the capital Colombo reached their peak overnight and now with the rains stopping, there is hope that the waters will start receding. Some shops and offices started reopening.
The extent of the damage in the worst-hit central region was revealed as rescue workers cleared roads blocked by fallen trees and landslides, officials said.
In Ma Oya, just north of the capital, Hasita Wijewardena said he was struggling to clean up after the floods. “The water has receded, but the house is now filled with mud,” he told local reporters, appealing for military help for cleanup.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who declared a state of emergency to deal with the disaster, vowed to rebuild. “We are facing the largest and most challenging natural disaster in our history,” he said in an address to the nation. “Certainly, we will build back a better nation than before.”
The loss and damage in Sri Lanka is the worst since the devastating Asian tsunami of 2004, which killed nearly 31,000 people and left more than a million homeless.
By Sunday afternoon, the rain had eased across Sri Lanka, but low-lying areas of the capital were flooded and authorities were preparing for a major relief operation.
Military helicopters have been deployed to airlift stranded residents and deliver food, although one crashed north of Colombo on Sunday evening.
Selvi, 46, from Wenawatte, a suburb of Colombo, emerged from her flooded home on Sunday carrying four bags of clothes and valuables. “My house has been completely flooded. I don’t know where to go, but I hope there is some safe shelter where I can take my family,” she said.
Much of Asia is in its annual monsoon season, which often brings heavy rains, causing landslides and flash floods.
But flooding in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia was made worse by a rare tropical storm that dumped particularly heavy rain on the island of Sumatra.
The climate crisis has also increased the intensity of storms, creating more heavy rainfall events as the warmer atmosphere holds more moisture.
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