Death toll from Southeast Asia storms tops 1,000
Catastrophic floods and landslides have struck Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia
What happened
More than 1,000 people have died and hundreds remain missing after catastrophic floods and landslides from tropical storms struck Southeast Asia, according to the latest death tolls. Sri Lanka reported 355 deaths from mudslides and flooding triggered by Cyclone Ditwah. A separate cyclone, Senyar, caused at least 502 deaths in Indonesia, 170 in Thailand and three in Malaysia.
Who said what
Much of the Indonesian island of Sumatra remains “cut off due to blocked roads, while damage to telecommunications infrastructure has hampered communication,” Reuters said. Hat Yai, the biggest city in Thailand’s hard-hit Songkhla province, recorded 13 inches of rain on Friday, “its highest single-day tally in 300 years, amid days of heavy downpours.” Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake Sunday declared a state of emergency to manage what he called the “largest and most challenging natural disaster in our history,” and the first to strike the entire country.
“Persistent bouts of the La Niña climate pattern are at least partially to blame for the flooding across the region,” as unusually warm oceans increase the moisture in the air, The Washington Post said. But “rising global temperatures have also made the atmosphere more waterlogged, fueling wetter and more dangerous storms.” Southeast Asia is “one of the areas most vulnerable to climate change,” said CNN.
What next?
As emergency response crews work to clear roads and get aid to people stuck without food or shelter, a “separate tropical storm, Koto, is expected to hit western Vietnam,” the latest in the “near-continuous string of storms” that have lashed Southeast Asia since mid-September, the Post said.
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