SAEDNEWS: Torrential monsoon season deluges paired with two separate tropical cyclones last week dumped heavy rain across all of Sri Lanka and parts of Indonesia's Sumatra, southern Thailand and northern Malaysia.
Climate change is producing more intense rainfall events because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, while warmer oceans can supercharge storms.
Floodwaters have largely receded, but the devastation has left hundreds of thousands of people living in shelters and struggling to access clean water and food.
In Indonesia’s Aceh province, one of the worst-hit regions, residents told AFP that those who could afford to were stockpiling supplies.
“Road access is mostly cut off in flood-affected areas,” said 29-year-old Erna Mardhiah as she joined a long queue at a petrol station in Banda Aceh. “People are worried about running out of fuel,” she added, waiting in line for two hours.
The shortages have caused prices to soar.
“Most things are already sky-high… chillies alone are up to 300,000 rupiah per kilo ($18), so that’s probably why people are panic-buying,” she explained.
On Monday, the Indonesian government announced it would send 34,000 tons of rice and 6.8 million liters of cooking oil to Aceh, North Sumatra, and West Sumatra, the three hardest-hit provinces.
“There can be no delays,” said Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman.
Aid organizations reported shipping supplies to affected areas, warning that local markets were running out of essentials and prices had already tripled.
“Communities across Aceh face severe risk of food shortages and hunger if supply lines are not reestablished in the next seven days,” Islamic Relief said. A 12-ton shipment of food from the group, transported aboard an Indonesian navy vessel, was expected to arrive in Aceh on Tuesday.
At least 631 people have died in the floods across Sumatra, with 472 still missing. Approximately one million people have evacuated, according to the national disaster agency.
Survivors described terrifying waves of water that arrived without warning. In East Aceh, Zamzami said the floodwaters were “unstoppable, like a tsunami wave.”
“We can’t explain how big the water seemed; it was truly extraordinary,” said the 33-year-old, who goes by a single name, as is common in Indonesia.
Villagers sought refuge atop a two-story fish market and are now cleaning mud and debris while contending with power and telecommunications outages.
“It’s difficult for us to get clean water,” he told AFP. “There are children starting to get fevers, and there’s no medicine.”
The storm system that inundated Indonesia also brought heavy rains to southern Thailand, killing at least 176 people, while Malaysia reported two more fatalities.
A separate storm unleashed torrential rains across Sri Lanka, triggering flash floods and deadly landslides that killed at least 390 people, with 352 still missing. Access to some of the hardest-hit areas in the country’s central region remains limited.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake declared a state of emergency, calling it the “most challenging natural disaster in our history,” and requested international aid. Sri Lanka’s air force, assisted by India and Pakistan, has been evacuating residents and delivering supplies.
In the mountainous Welimada region, authorities recovered the bodies of 11 residents buried by mudslides, a local official reported. Meanwhile, floodwaters in the capital Colombo were slowly receding on Tuesday.
“The speed with which the waters rose surprised us,” said delivery driver Dinusha Sanjaya. “Every year we experience minor floods, but this is something else. It’s not just the amount of water, but how quickly everything went under.”
Rains have eased nationwide, but landslide alerts remain in effect across most of the central region, officials said.
