Death toll in Myanmar from Typhoon Yagi reaches 74. Dozens of other people are missing

BANGKOK (AP) — The death toll in Myanmar from flooding and landslides caused by Typhoon Yagi has reached at least 74, with 89 people missing, Myanmar’s state television said Saturday.

Difficulties in compiling information have raised fears that the number of casualties may be higher.

The new official death toll announced by the country’s military government was more than double the 33 reported on Friday. Typhoon Yagi earlier hit Vietnam, northern Thailand and Laos, killing more than 260 people and causing major damage.

The new totals were announced after state media reported that Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the ruling military council, said that Myanmar was requesting relief aid from foreign countries.

Nearly 240,000 people have been displaced, according to the reports. There were already 3.4 million displaced people in Myanmar at the beginning of September, according to the U.N. refugee agency, mostly because of war and unrest in recent years.

In Myanmar, low-lying areas in the central regions of Mandalay and Bago, as well as eastern Shan state and the country’s capital, Naypyitaw, have been inundated by water since Wednesday.

Min Aung Hlaing and other military officials inspected flooded areas and reviewed rescue, relief and rehabilitation efforts in Naypyitaw on Friday, the state-run Myanma Alinn newspaper reported. Its report said that he instructed officials to contact foreign countries, as other countries affected by the storm did, to receive rescue and relief aid for the victims.

“It is necessary to manage rescue, relief and rehabilitation measures as quickly as possible,” he was quoted as saying.

The exact extent of the damage still wasn't clear, but there were fears that the death toll may rise sharply. Local news outlets reported more than 100 people missing.

Efforts to tally casualties and damage and provide relief are complicated. Myanmar is in a state of civil war that began in 2021, after the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Independent analysts believe the military controls much less than half of the country’s territory.

Myanmar experiences extreme weather virtually every year during the monsoon season. In 2008, Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 people. In that case, the military government then in power delayed accepting international assistance, and when it finally relented, tightly controlled its distribution, with little or no oversight by aid donors.

Saturday evening’s state television news said that 24 bridges, 375 school buildings, one Buddhist monastery, five dams, four pagodas, 14 electrical transformers, 456 lampposts and more than 65,000 houses were damaged by floods in central and eastern parts of the country.

Naypyitaw is one of the areas that was hit hardest by the floods. Myanmar’s Eleven Media group reported on Friday that record rainfall had damaged several pagodas in Bagan, the country’s ancient capital that is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The rain, said to be the heaviest in 60 years, collapsed walls at several centuries-old old temples, it said.

Local residents wade through water with their cows in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents carrying food wade through a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

A car covered in flood debris in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents carrying food on their cart wade through a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents rest near a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Debris from half-submerged residences gather on a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents carrying food wade through a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local resident eat meal on a cart near a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Debris from half-submerged residences float on a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

A women rests near a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

A car is submerged on a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents travel by boat on a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents rest near a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

A dog stands near a half-submerged house on a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents carrying food wade through a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents and a Buddhist monk carrying food wade through a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Volunteers gather to distribute foods to flood victims on a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents carrying food wade through a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents carrying foods wade through a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents travel by small boat on a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Flood victims rest on a bamboo raft with their food on a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents travel by boat on a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents carrying food wade through a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents travel by boat on a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Flood victims rest on a bamboo raft with their food on a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Debris from half-submerged residences floats on a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents carrying food wade through a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents wade through water with their cows in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

A dead pig floats on a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

A man carrying a dog wades through a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

CAIRO (AP) — Iranians began to regain internet access on Wednesday after authorities ended a monthslong shutdown. But users said service was slow and spotty in some areas, with apps like YouTube and Instagram heavily restricted, as they were before the cutoff began during nationwide protests in January.

Authorities justified the outage as a military imperative after the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Their decision to lift some restrictions this week came as negotiators appeared to be closing in on a more permanent truce. But many Iranians feared access could be cut off again at a moment's notice.

Internet tracking company Netblocks said Iran’s connectivity, which measures the ability of devices to connect to the internet, is at around 86% of capacity from before the cutoff. Internet analysis firm Kentik said internet traffic, which measures the amount of data transferred and is a good illustration of usage, was at around 40%.

Amir Rashidi, an Iranian cybersecurity analyst, said there were still widespread disruptions. “It's too early to say the shutdown is over,” he wrote on X.

Iran’s roughly 90 million people have been cut off from the internet for most of 2026, one of the world’s longest and strictest national shutdowns. Young people with online careers saw their incomes evaporate. Job losses and the closure of online businesses added to the war's steep economic costs.

The cutoff made it difficult for Iranian families to communicate through months of unrest and war. At some points, phone lines were also cut off, though they were later restored.

A woman living in Tehran said that for months she was barely able to speak to her sons living abroad. She couldn't believe authorities had restored access, saying she had assumed they would find some justification to prolong the outage.

A taxi driver said service was restored but weak. He expressed hope it would improve so he could use messaging apps with family and friends. Both spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Prices spiked during the shutdown, with residents in Tehran at times paying around $7.50 per gigabyte. Prices are back down to around $2.25 for 30 gigabytes, roughly where they were before the protests.

Even then, Iran tightly controlled access to popular social media sites, leading many to rely on virtual private networks, or VPNs. The cost of those workarounds soared during the shutdown, making them unaffordable for many as the economy was battered.

Businesses have started reappearing online, announcing their return with posts on sites like Instagram and Telegram.

A gamer and tech influencer in the central city of Isfahan said the shutdown had caused him to lose a lot of his audience on YouTube and Instagram, where he had spent years building up a large following.

“All my views and interactions are way down. I’ve been erased from the algorithm,” he said in a voice note sent by WhatsApp, adding that his internet connection was still slower than before the shutdown.

“The situation is such that many content producers have had their income reduced to zero, have moved on to other jobs, or have been forced to sell their equipment to survive,” he said. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Iranian authorities first shut down the internet in January during mass anti-government protests that were eventually stamped out in a violent crackdown. Thousands of people were killed and tens of thousands detained.

That cutoff was just starting to ease when the government imposed a complete internet blackout after the start of the war, when U.S. and Israeli strikes killed Iran's supreme leader and other top officials.

The government faced criticism for the prolonged shutdown, which caused even more harm to an economy devastated by inflation, strikes on key industries and a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports.

The internet cutoff cost an estimated $30-40 million daily, with indirect losses likely twice that much, a member of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Afshin Kolahi, told a local newspaper last month. About 10 million people have jobs that depend on internet connectivity, according to Communications Minister Sattar Hashemi.

Iranians still had access to a national net, but that has a far narrower reach, and users complained of poor service and heavy censorship. Senior government officials are given SIM cards granting them access to the global internet. Under pressure, the government expanded access to the SIM cards to some professions during the shutdown.

A woman checks her smartphone while sitting on a bench along a sidewalk in northern Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)