Myanmar’s President headed to devastated rural regions where a state of emergency was declared after deadly monsoon rains displaced tens of thousands of people, flooded swathes of rice paddy and prompted fears of dams collapsing.
Thein Sein was due to arrive on Saturday at a military base in Sagaing Division, a major rice growing area where soldiers are coordinating a relief effort after a month of rain over all but two of Myanmar’s 14 States.
Inundated in July The storms and floods have so far killed 21 people, with water levels as high as 2.5 metres in Sagaing and 4.5 metres in western Rakhine state, according to the government, which on Friday declared four regions disaster zones.
Myanmar was inundated throughout last month and storms since July 22 have “severely affected” between 67,000 and 110,000 people, according to the United Nations.
Though rain has stopped in most areas, the recovery effort is a major test for impoverished Myanmar. The country has only basic infrastructure and medical facilities and is ill-equipped to deal with disasters, as shown when Cyclone Nargis battered the Irrawaddy Delta in 2008, killing 130,000 people.
Nearly 525,000 acres of farmland has been affected, an area roughly the size of Luxembourg, and more than 34,000 acres of paddy fields damaged, mostly in the Sagaing, Kachin State, Bago and Rakhine state regions, the agriculture ministry said.
