Floods in Myanmar force 10,000 from their homes, many trapped

Rivers in northern Myanmar swollen by torrential rain have burst their banks, forcing about 10,000 people, including many displaced by war, to flee, while many others have been trapped on their roofs by the rising waters, relief workers told Radio Free Asia on Monday. 

Heavy rain in Kachin state has led to floods in four townships along the banks of the Irrawaddy and N’mai rivers, forcing residents to seek shelter in monasteries and elsewhere on higher ground.

“Every neighborhood is flooded. It could be worse than the record set in 2004,” said one relief worker in the state capital, Myitkyina, referring to the last severe flooding in Myanmar’s northernmost state 20 years ago.

“There are lots of people affected,” said the aid worker, who declined to be identified in fear of reprisals by the military authorities for speaking to the media.

RFA called Kachin state’s junta spokesperson, Moe Min Thein, for information on rescue efforts but calls went unanswered. A junta-backed newspaper, The Global New Light of Myanmar, reported that relief operations were underway and nine evacuation facilities had opened in Kachin state since Sunday.

Overflowing rivers forced residents from their homes in Tanai, Waimaw, Chipwi townships, and parts of Myitkyina, which is on the west bank of the Irrawaddy.

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Camps for people displaced by weeks of fighting between the autonomy-seeking Kachin Independence Army insurgent group and junta forces in Waingmaw, Chipwi and Myitkyina townships were also flooded, with their inhabitants forced to find higher ground, witnesses said.

There were no immediate reports of deaths in the latest flooding but landslides, partly triggered by the heavy rain, have recently killed at least 35 people in rare earth mines in Chipwi township. 

By 9:30 a.m. on Monday, the Irrawaddy river had risen four feet (1.2 meters) above its critical level, and was still rising by about three inches every hour, Naing Linn Htwe, chief of the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology, said in a statement.

Some residents of Myitkyina have taken refuge from the swirling, murky waters on the roofs of their homes.

“We’re trapped,” one resident stuck on a roof told RFA. “The water is almost as deep as the height of a man.”

“In my household, there are three kids and two elderly people and rescue hasn’t come yet, but they said they would. They said they’d run into some difficulties on the way.”

To the south, residents in river-side communities in the Sagaing, Magway and Ayeyarwady regions, which are also on the Irrawaddy, are fretting that the inundation will soon reach them.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.