Updated Sept. 16, 2024, 08:52 p.m. ET.
Images from northern Laos and central Myanmar show the extent of flooding from torrential rains brought by Typhoon Yagi.
Asia's biggest storm of the year has left scores of people dead or missing in several countries in Southeast Asia since roaring across northern Vietnam, northern Laos and Thailand last week, causing landslides and flooding, and destroying homes, bridges and roads.
Since Sept. 10, high water levels in Laos’ Luang Namtha province have forced residents in affected villages up to the second floors of their flooded homes as they wait for help.
Others have sought temporary shelter inside a provincial administration hall, a badminton court hall and Buddhist temples.
The waterlogged areas include 35 villages, according to a Sept. 11 provincial administration report submitted to Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone’s office.
Authorities are busy rescuing people from the roofs of their homes, taking them to temporary shelter, and providing food and drinking water from donations by businesses and the wealthy, said a local official who declined to be identified so he could speak freely.
Heavy rains from the storm caused spillover from the Namtha 3 Dam that flowed down the Namtha River, a tributary of the Mekong and the largest river in the province, and contributed to the flooding of province's Luang Namtha district.
Lake level rises 6 meters
In Myanmar, flooding from heavy rains has displaced more than 20,000 people from over 170 villages since Sept. 11 in the vicinity of Inle Lake, and residents urgently need aid, locals and volunteer aid workers said.
The flooding caused power outages and forced schools to close in communities near the freshwater lake in southern Shan state.
“We have never experienced such a severe flood before,” said a resident of Ma Gyi Seik village.
The water level of the lake has risen more than six meters (20 feet) above normal because of heavy rainfall and water washing down from the mountains, inundating roughly 2,000 nearby homes.
A resident of affected He Yar village said only a few of some 800 single-story houses were not inundated with water, and that villagers must rely on food delivered by boat.
Rescue workers have evacuated the elderly to Buddhist monasteries, though they need water and medicine, while other families are staying with friends and relatives, said a volunteer rescue worker.
As of Sept. 16, Myanmar state media said 226 people had died and 77 were still missing.
The death toll is double the previous figure of 113 reported on Sunday, with nearly 260,000 hectares (640,000 acres) of crops destroyed by floods.
Translated by Phouvong for RFA Lao and by Aung Naing for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
Updates Myanmar death toll to 226.