Myanmar residents flee deadly floods in boats and on makeshift rafts

Carrying children on their backs or rowing the elderly on makeshift rafts through rising waters on Thursday, tens of thousands of Myanmar residents fled severe flooding triggered by the deadly Typhoon Yagi.

Torrential rains have lashed conflict-racked Myanmar in the wake of Typhoon Yagi which smashed into Vietnam at the weekend, wrecking infrastructure and causing deadly landslides across the region.

Floods have tipped rivers in Myanmar over their danger levels, cut communications and displaced more than 53,000 people, authorities said.

Around 600 people were sheltering in a school building after fleeing their homes near the surging Sittaung river in Taungoo town, about 220 kilometres (135 miles)from Yangon, local rescuers told AFP.

"It's worse this time. It's nothing like before," said one 76-year-old woman at the school who did not want to give her name.

"The water came halfway up our house."

"We left some stuff behind. I don't think about it anymore. We got here to save ourselves. We brought some pots and pans with us. The rest we left on the bar under the roof. I don't care if they survive the water or not."

Myanmar's fire service said 17 bodies had been recovered from flooded villages in the Mandalay region since Wednesday.

Separately, a rescue team had recovered the body of one dead woman near the military-built capital Naypyidaw, one of its volunteers told AFP.

"The whole village was submerged and people had stayed on the roofs of their houses and in trees the whole day and night," he said, requesting anonymity in order to talk to the media.

Junta authorities had no "casualty or damage figures yet", Lay Shwe Zin Oo, director of social welfare, relief and resettlement ministry, told AFP earlier.

Authorities had opened "around 50 camps for some 70,000 flood victims" expected near Naypyidaw, Bago region, and in Kayah, Mon and Shan states, she said.

Emergency workers were also rowing boats through towns to evacuate stranded villagers.

- Sudden rise -

Some families piled their belongings and children into rescue boats where they sat under plastic sheets.

Others carried children on their backs or rowed elderly people through the water on makeshift rafts of tyres and wooden pallets.

"The water has risen so quickly," another woman at the school told AFP.

"Around 300 feet (90 metres) from the school it's at head height," she said.

More than 3.3 million people in Myanmar are currently displaced, according to the United Nations, with most of them forced to flee their homes by conflict unleashed by the military's coup in 2021.

More than 200 people have been killed in Vietnam, Laos and Thailand by floods and landslides unleashed by Typhoon Yagi.

The rainy season typically brings months of heavy downpours to the Southeast Asian country but scientists say man-made climate change is making weather patterns more intense.

As the rain pelted down at the school near Taungoo, rescuers distributed dried noodles to a queue of people.

"I am going straight home the moment the water level drops," the 76-year-old woman said.

"When the water reaches up to my waist, I will go home."

lmg-ees-hla-rma/pbt