Monsoon flooding across central Myanmar has driven an estimated 390,000 people from their homes and fields since July, the United Nations reported Aug. 14, with the toll compounded by a civil war now in its fifth year.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the worst damage is concentrated in Sagaing region, where roughly 230,000 people have been affected. The states of Rakhine, Irrawaddy and Kachin account for the remaining numbers.
"The suffering we are facing, I can't even put into words how painful it is," said Cho Myint, a 53-year-old villager from Wetlet township in Sagaing. Standing beside an upturned boat, she said rising waters had forced her family to flee and left them with nothing.
The Myanmar Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement reported that by Aug. 11, heavy rainfall and river flooding in Sagaing had displaced more than 11,400 people from 3,220 households, relocating them to flood relief centers. OCHA said it had not yet compiled a final displacement figure from the rains, separate from those already displaced by war.
U Sint, another resident of Wetlet township, said war refugees sheltering in temporary structures had fared worst. "They couldn't save anything. It is really terrible," he said. The floods had destroyed livelihoods across the area, he added. "The rice seedlings have already been swept away. In this area, it's simply impossible to plant padi anymore. Even if we were to sow seeds again, the land hasn't emerged yet."
A handful of residents chose to stay behind. Aung Ko remained in Wetlet with his brother-in-law to protect their cow. Around 10 to 14 people stayed in the township. The two men have been living on the upper floor of their home under tarpaulins, surviving on instant noodles and bottled water delivered by local rescuers travelling by boat. "Before the donors came, we had no choice but to take flood water and boil it to drink," Aung Ko said, standing in knee-deep muddy water.
OCHA spokesman Pierre Peron said several major rivers remain at or above danger levels and the organization expects the humanitarian impact to worsen over the coming days and weeks. "With ongoing monsoon rainfall and several major rivers at or above danger levels, we unfortunately estimate that the impact of the flooding will continue in coming days and weeks," Peron said. UN partner agencies are mobilizing aid, though Peron said flood damage to homes, shelters, infrastructure and farmland has widened the gap between available support and what people need—particularly for food, clean water, health services and livelihood assistance.
The flooding compounds a humanitarian crisis that predates this monsoon season. The 2021 military coup triggered an armed conflict that has driven hundreds of thousands of people across Myanmar into internal displacement. OCHA said the 390,000 figure includes people already displaced by the war who were sheltering in makeshift camps when the rains arrived. For many of them, the floods destroyed whatever temporary shelter and possessions remained.
Seasonal monsoon rainfall is essential to Myanmar's rice-farming economy, which depends on annual wet-season planting cycles across the Irrawaddy basin and the lowland plains of Sagaing. But climate scientists have documented an increase in the erratic intensity of monsoon rainfall across mainland Southeast Asia, with extreme precipitation events arriving harder and faster than agricultural communities can absorb. U Sint's account of submerged paddies and seeds that cannot be replanted points to a harvest loss that extends well beyond the immediate flood period.
Myanmar's military government, which seized power in February 2021, has faced international isolation and sanctions from Western governments since the coup. That isolation has constrained the flow of international humanitarian aid and reduced the operational reach of foreign relief organizations inside the country. OCHA and its partners are working within those constraints to reach affected populations, but Peron said the scale of need across four states strains current capacity.
