Aid agencies provide reilef in a camp for internally displaced people before the monsoon season. Many IDP camps were set-up on paddy fields which are prone to flooding in the rainy season. Photo: Evangelos Petratos EU/ECHO, CC-NC-ND (archive photo)
“Massive devastation”
SITTWE, Myanmar/ GENEVA, 5 August 2015 (LWI) – The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Country program in Myanmar has formed an emergency response team to support the people affected by the monsoon floods in Rakhine state. “The devastation caused by the flood in Rakhine State is massive”, LWF staff Bhoj Raj Khanal says. “We have formed emergency response teams in Yangon and Sittwe. Four states within the Republic of the Union of Myanmar have been declared emergency areas.”
Exceptionally heavy seasonal rains at the end of June and throughout July have caused flooding in Rakhine State, Chin State, Sagaing Region, Magway Region and other parts of the country. As of 3 August, the Relief and Resettlement Department (RRD) of the Myanmar Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement reported that over 200,000 people have been affected and 39 people have been killed across the flooded regions. These figures are expected to rise in the coming days as the full extent of the damage becomes visible.
Core relief items
LWF Myanmar has formed an emergency team and started to hand out core relief items, blankets and school books. LWF Myanmar has been asked by UNHCR to assist with distributing more core relief items in Rakhine state.
“Immediate needs include food, shelter, water and sanitation, as well as access to emergency healthcare”, LWF Humanitarian Coordinator Roland Schlott says. In the medium term, education and livelihoods will face additional challenges as farmland has been flooded and schools have been destroyed by the water.
LWF has been working in Myanmar since 2008. Coordinated from the country office in Yangon and the field office in Sittwe, Rakhine state, main activities have been emergency response, livelihood and food security, water, sanitation and hygiene, disaster risk reduction, and human rights advocacy. Community-based field staff helps improve community organization, health, education, agriculture and climate change adaptation.
Disaster overwhelms government structures
“The members of the Myanmar ACT Forum have issued an alert today”, LWF Humanitarian Coordinator Schlott says. “It is clear is that the scale of the disaster surpasses the ability of the government structures to respond, especially since the affected areas have previously been affected by civil conflict or decades of underdevelopment.”
The LWF will use available stocks of non-food items such as blankets, hygiene kits, cooking utensils and shelter materials to help the disaster affected people, Schlott says. However, to meet the immense needs of the people affected would “require the mobilization of significant resources”, he adds.
“We welcome any donation large or small to support our relief efforts in Myanmar.”
Donate to the LWF Myanmar emergency response
Photo essay: School books among the relief goods arriving in Myanmar
Lutheran World Federation (LWF) staff in Myanmar are ferrying in food, student exercise books and other relief goods to flood-hit areas in the west of the country. Recent monsoon rains caused flooding that affected 200,000 people across the Rakhine state.
The LWF is working closely with town administrators and the government’s relief and resettlement department to deliver rice, cooking oil, salt, pulses and water, as well as school materials and other goods to villages in Mya Thout village, Ponnakyun township.
In total, LWF Myanmar is supporting 10,360 people in 19 villages. A total of 9,078 children from 31 schools will receive education materials from the LWF. According to the state government, floods destroyed 78 government schools. During the floods, some 30,000 children lost text books and student kits, which need to be replaced as soon as possible.
August 14, 2015
Photo Credits: LWF Myanmar/Mya Yadanar Khine unless indicated otherwise
As most of the village ponds and drinking water sources are contaminated by the floods, the supply of fresh water is seen as an acute problem in the flood-affected villages. Twenty-litre containers of drinking water for Dar Paing village and Ohn Thoo Tan village are brought ashore. Credit: LWF Myanmar/Mya Yadanar Khine
Women from Mya Thout village unload the packages of cooking oil from the boat. The village was severely affected by recent floods. Credit: LWF Myanmar/Kyaw Myint Moe
People unload bags of salt from a boat. Credit: LWF Myanmar/Mya Yadanar Khine
A beneficiary sits with relief items. Credit: LWF Myanmar/Mya Yadanar Khine
Two volunteers with relief goods at Mra Thout village. Credit: LWF Myanmar/Mya Yadanar Khine
Residents of Ohn Thoo Tan village load drinking water and relief kits to the small boat. Credit: LWF Myanmar/Mya Yadanar Khine
The monastery in Ohn Thoo Tan served as a distribution point for relief assistance. residents. Credit: LWF Myanmar/Mya Yadanar Khine
Ohn Thoo Tan residents carry away relief assistance.. Credit: LWF Myanmar/Mya Yadanar Khine
