AFP — Severe monsoon flooding has submerged villages and rice paddies in central Myanmar, forcing residents to flee their homes — including those already displaced by war — AFP correspondents and the United Nations reported.
"The suffering we are facing cannot be put into words — there is no way to describe how much pain we are in," said Kyaw Min, 53, a resident of Wetlet township in the Sagaing Region, speaking to AFP. She said her family had been forced to flee the floodwaters and now has nothing left.
The United Nations said that since July, severe monsoon flooding in the Sagaing Region, Rakhine State, the Ayeyarwady Region, and Kachin State has affected approximately 390,000 people, with 230,000 of them in the Sagaing Region alone.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said those figures also include people already affected by the civil war that erupted following Myanmar's military coup in 2021.
U Sint, another resident of Wetlet, said some war refugees in the area had been living in small makeshift shelters, all of which have now been completely submerged.
"They have nothing left. It is very bad. The rice seedlings have all been washed away. This area probably won't be able to grow rice again — even if we replant, the soil still hasn't resurfaced," the resident said.
Myanmar's Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement stated that as of 11 August, heavy rains and flooding in Sagaing had caused more than 11,400 people from 3,220 households to evacuate to flood victim care centres.
In Wetlet, Aung Ko and relatives who had stayed behind to look after cattle said only around 10 to 14 people remained in the area.
They were living on the upper floors of their homes under tarpaulins, surviving on instant noodles and bottled drinking water brought to them by boat by local rescue workers.
"Before the rescue teams arrived, we had no choice but to scoop up the floodwater and boil it to drink," said Aung Ko, as he stood waist-deep in muddy water.
An OCHA spokesperson said the organisation does not yet have figures on the number of people displaced specifically due to the heavy rains.
"But with monsoon rainfall continuing and several major rivers at or above danger levels, we anticipate that the flooding impact will continue for many days and weeks to come," the OCHA spokesperson said.
The spokesperson noted that UN partners are mobilising to assist the most vulnerable, but that flood damage to homes, shelters, infrastructure, and farmland is significantly increasing humanitarian needs — particularly for food, health services, clean water, and livelihood support.
While seasonal monsoons bring the rainfall that farmers depend on, climate change is making the phenomenon increasingly erratic, unpredictable, and dangerous across the region.
