Volunteers rush to help as Myanmar flood toll surges

BAGO, Myanmar: Volunteers rushed to areas inundated by floods in Myanmar on Sunday as the country´s death toll from the Typhoon Yagi deluge surged to 113 and remote areas reported increasing numbers of dead and missing.

Floods and landslides have killed more than 400 people in Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand in the wake of Typhoon Yagi, which hit the region last weekend, according to official figures.

However, with roads and bridges damaged in Myanmar and phone and internet lines down, information has been limited.

One man told AFP how he had tried to rescue people with ropes as floodwaters four metres (15 feet) high surged through the hill town of Kalaw in Shan state on September 10.

“The current was very strong and even some buildings were destroyed,” he said, describing pieces of furniture being washed through the streets.

“I could see trapped families in the distance standing on the roofs of their houses,” said the man, who works for a local non-governmental group. “I heard there were 40 bodies in the hospital,” he said.

A businesswoman in Yangon who runs a company in Kalaw told AFP her staff there had reported nearly 60 people had been killed in the town.

The junta said on Sunday the death toll had jumped to 113 by Saturday night. The previous toll had been put at 74.

It did not specify whether any of those confirmed dead had been killed in Kalaw.

More than 320,000 people had been displaced and moved to “temporary relief camps”, junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun said.