Casualties in Myanmar push Southeast Asia's death toll from Typhoon Yagi past 500

BANGKOK (AP) — Floods and landslides in Myanmar triggered by last week’s Typhoon Yagi and seasonal monsoon rains have claimed at least 226 lives, with 77 people missing, state-run media reported Tuesday. The new figures push the total number of dead in Southeast Asia from the storm past 500.

The accounting of casualties has been slow, in part due to communication difficulties with the affected areas. Myanmar is wracked by a civil war that began in 2021 after the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Independent analysts believe the ruling military controls much less than half of the country’s territory.

Typhoon Yagi earlier hit Vietnam, northern Thailand and Laos, killing almost 300 people in Vietnam, 42 in Thailand and four in Laos, according to the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance. It said 21 people were killed in the Philippines, with another 26 missing.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said on Monday that an estimated 631,000 people may have been affected by flooding across Myanmar. 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.

Heavy rains from the typhoon and the seasonal monsoon brought widespread flash floods to Myanmar, especially the central regions of Mandalay, Magway, Bago and the Ayeyarwaddy Delta; the eastern states Shan, Kayah, Kayin and Mon; and the country’s capital, Naypyitaw.

Some flooded areas have started to see water levels recede but others in the Shan and Kayah states remain critical.

More than 160,000 houses have been damaged and 438 temporary relief camps have been opened for more than 160,000 flood victims, Myanma Alinn reported. The military government announced that nearly 240,000 people have been displaced.

Myanma Alinn said 117 government offices and buildings, 1,040 schools, 386 religious buildings, roads, bridges, power towers, and telecom towers were damaged by the floods in 56 townships.

It also said nearly 130,000 animals were killed and more than 259,000 hectares (640,000 acres) of agricultural land were damaged by the floods.

The U.N.’s humanitarian affairs agency said food, drinking water, medicine, clothes, dignity kits, and shelters are urgent needs for the flood victims but alleviation efforts are hampered by blocked roads, damaged bridges and ongoing armed clashes.

Vice Senior Gen. Soe Win, the second-ranking member of Myanmar’s ruling military council, said the country had received relief aid from other countries, and some humanitarian assistance from the Association of Southeast Asia, will arrive soon.

Soe Win, speaking at a meeting of the National Disaster Management Committee on Monday, said that the extent of flooding in the capital was unprecedented, and cleaning and rehabilitation activities in the flooded areas began Thursday as the water level declined.

Myanmar experiences extreme weather during the monsoon virtually every year. In 2008, Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 people around the Irrawaddy River delta. The then-military government was harshly discredited when it delayed acceptance of outside aid.

Local residents carry food on their cart, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents carry their belongings along a flooded road, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents carry food walking in the rain, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents carry their belongings along a flooded road, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents wade through flooded water at a broken bridge, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents wade through flooded water at a broken bridge, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents travel by boat on a flooded road, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

A boy wades through a flooded road, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

A women and child wade through a flooded road, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Myanmar, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents wade through flooded water at a broken bridge, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Flood victims receive relief supplies from a private donor in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Flood victims take rest at temporary camp opened at monastery in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

A chicken stands on wooden beam of a half-submerged building along a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

A woman looks out at flooded areas in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents wash clothes along a flooded road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Disasters, including those wrought by fiercer storms, are threatening more people and could derail economic progress in the Asia Pacific region if governments don't invest more in disaster mitigation and prevention, a U.N. official said Tuesday.

U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Kamal Kishore, who heads the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, issued the warning in a speech at the start of a regional conference on disaster mitigation hosted by the Philippines, one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.

"Disasters are now affecting record numbers of people and threatening their lives and livelihoods,” Kishore told hundreds of delegates to the three-day conference in Manila led by ministers in charge of disaster mitigation and response across the Asia Pacific.

"Left unchecked, these disaster risks threaten to derail the development aspirations of the Asia Pacific region and push back progress that has taken decades to achieve,” he said.

Kishore said Asia Pacific countries should regularly dedicate funds in their national budgets for the reduction of disaster risk, and should allocate a larger proportion of foreign development aid to disaster prevention and “not simply response.”

Such investments have brought down death tolls, he said. "They do die, but the mortality is coming down compared to before,” Kishore separately told reporters in an interview on the sidelines of the Manila conference.

Discussions focused on better disaster-warning systems, sharing of technology and building more resilient infrastructure, houses and workplaces.

The Philippines, which is co-hosting the Manila conference, has been in the crosshairs of disasters given its location as an archipelago sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea, where about 20 typhoons and storms blow across each year. It’s also in the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where volcanic eruptions and earthquakes have long been a constant threat.

"These are compounded by the increasing frequencies of hazards brought about by climate change, which makes the Philippines at risk and our landscape even more,” President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. told the conference in a keynote speech.

With better access to financing, technology and data, the most vulnerable states could build better resilience, Marcos said.

European Union Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarćić attended the U.N. disaster-mitigation conference in Manila because he said closer international cooperation was the only way for nations from Asia to Europe to confront “a new reality” of “unprecedented frequency and intensity of weather-related disasters."

“None of us will be able to face these new challenges alone,” Lenarćić told The Associated Press in an interview. “These disasters know no boundaries.”

Since 2020, the EU has allocated more than 80 million euros ($87 million) to the Asia Pacific region to help finance disaster preparedness and mitigation efforts, Lenarćić said, and he urged wealthier countries to contribute more to such campaigns.

"This region has gained a lot of experience in facing disasters, in building resilience, and we would like to learn also the experiences from this region,” he said of the Philippines and other Asian countries. “It’s a two-way street.”

Associated Press journalists Joeal Calupitan and Aaron Favila in Manila contributed to this report.

European Union Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarcic gestures during an interview with the Associated Press on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024, in Manila, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

European Union Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarcic gestures during an interview with the Associated Press on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024, in Manila, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Kamal Kishore, left, gestures beside Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. as he speaks at the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, in Manila, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Kamal Kishore gestures as he speaks at the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, in Manila, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)