RAIN OR SHINE: Two women look for customers for their merchandise while boating among flooded homes in the village of Athok, some 160km west of Yangon, on August 17. The Red Cross has provided millions of kyats in aid to help the thousands of people affected by flooding in the Ayeyarwady delta region.Pic: AFP/Khin Maung Win

THE Myanmar Red Cross Society has provided about K4.5 million in aid to villagers in the Ayeyarwady River delta region who have been affected by flooding in recent weeks, said U Zaw Htoo Oo, the program officer of the Disaster Management Division of the society.

Local officials and residents said on August 20 that at least 18 villages and about 10,000 homes have been hit by the floods caused by unusually heavy rains in the low-lying region.

Eight schools have been closed and about 40,000 acres of rice paddies were destroyed, according to an Agriculture Department official.

In the village of Athok, about 160 kilometres (100 miles) west of Yangon, residents were living on bamboo scaffolding built near their homes to try to stay above the water.

“The whole village has been flooded for about a week. Other nearby villages have also flooded,” an Athok village official told AFP.

“The village authorities are delivering rice donated by local businessmen to the victims,” he said.

Some made tents along the roads, while dozens of families took shelter inside the village railway station, on a football field and inside Buddhist temples.

“We can’t afford to build a bamboo shelter at our house. That’s why we moved to this train station,” said Aye Myint, a 48-year-old farm worker seeking shelter at the train station.

“I cannot earn any income because of the flood and I spent a day without eating while I waded through the water to get here,” he said.

“We just worry about finding rice. We can get salt and chili and we’ve been able to catch fish in the water.”

U Zaw Htoo Oo told The Myanmar Times that the flooding was so widespread that it was difficult to precisely determine its effects.

“MRCS is set up to help victims of disasters that occur in a limited region but it is not easy to get information on how to provide aid when the flooding is spread out over such a wide area,” he said.

U Zaw Htoo Oo said flooding has also affected other areas of Myanmar, including Sagaing in Sagaing Division; Mandalay, Amarapura, Singu and Mogok in Mandalay Division; Minbu and Pakokku in Magwe Division; and Pyay in Bago Division.