UPDATES at 16:16 EDT, Aug. 16, 2023.
Three months after Cyclone Mocha struck Myanmar, heavy monsoon rains are hampering aid delivery and displacing even more people affected by May’s devastating storm.
The country’s civil war and infrastructure damage pose additional challenges for relief efforts and long-term recovery.
The cyclone, one of the strongest to hit Myanmar, killed 145 people, according to the military junta, but the shadow National Unity Government, put the death toll at more than 450.
In Rakhine State, about 15% of the cyclone’s victims remained displaced when the rains began, and subsequent flooding in five townships displaced another 4,000 residents.
The director of the Arakan Heritage Foundation, who goes by the name August, spoke of the junta’s blockade of international aid, emphasizing their reliance on internal humanitarian aid, which includes food and rice bag distributions.
“We are expecting the need for medicine to get higher because of the flood-related diseases,” he told Radio Free Asia.
August added that there were some disruptions along roads in the state, with bridges and roads flooded, and repairs could take a long time.
Rakhine isn’t the sole state affected. Myanmar has seen around 40,000 people uprooted by the monsoon floods, causing extensive damage across Rakhine, Kayin, Bago, and Mon State. In particular, parts of Kayin State’s Asia Highway succumbed to the monsoon, causing potential delays in relief distribution and healthcare access.
Saw Ba Win, from the Ethnic Health Strengthening Services Group, highlighted the fallout, noting increased basic service costs, disruption in healthcare access, and hampered aid delivery.
“It will impact people, the price increasing. They cannot communicate to transportation, it’s cut out. So at times, how can we carry out the medicine and supplies? And also for emergency [medical] referrals,” he told RFA.
Hard to reach
About 500 households have been displaced in Hpa-an District, and for most residents in four severely inundated communities in Thaton District, according to a spokesperson at the Karen Department of Health and Welfare.
Delivering aid remains challenging for about half of these households due to their remote locations, the spokesperson added.
Meanwhile, there has been an alarming increase in malaria cases, with numbers on the Karen border rising to 5,319 in the initial seven months of 2023 – a huge jump compared with previous years. The country recorded 1,098 and 4,595 malaria cases in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
Nay Htoo, the director of the Burma Medical Association, expressed concerns about those migrating from flood-hit areas to malaria-prone districts.
“It will be serious if you get malaria if you are not immune and have no antibodies against it,” he said.
Fighting flares
Further complicating relief measures is the escalating conflict in regions like Kayin State, where more than 8,000 of the flood victims reside. Here, airstrikes and shelling are audible from the Thai border. The Karen health department spokesperson said routing aid through conflict zones is riskier and more time-consuming.
“If we know the fighting area is on the way, we have to think of another way to deliver it. Of course, definitely another way will cost more time,” the spokesperson told RFA.
The department is also concerned about possible landmine-related incidents since it is tricky to figure out what dangers await under floodwaters, according to the spokesperson.
“When the landmine can move or when the flood-affected populations move to a place, they can be at risk as well. So that is what concerns us in Kler Lwee Htoo [Nyaunglebin] District.”
Long-term impact
Even while local organizations are providing food and medication to affected areas, the long-term effects on residents' livelihoods may generate larger concerns, according to experts.
“Next year’s harvest will be very bad, already the price of the rice bags is double, triple in some places,” said the Arakan Heritage Foundation’s August, adding that livestock was also low, as many had drowned.
For instance, rice paddies, which were already in limited supply due to storms last winter and Cyclone Mocha, has sustained additional damage in recent weeks.
“Mocha already damaged the supply of cattle to the farmers. In this flooded area, the cattle died also.”
Nay Htoo from the Burma Medical Association re-emphasized the gravity, saying that food and water treatment is among the top priorities for flooding victims, as rice crops have been destroyed.
“If the flooding destroys the rice fields, you need to collect the paddy to plant rice again,” he said. “If you’re fighting, you have to worry about your life, your survival. You don’t worry about malaria– you worry about your food items.”
Edited by Taejun Kang and Malcolm Foster.
Updates with death toll in third graf.