Myanmar floods: President declares state of emergency

Apartments buildings in Chin state collapsed following a landslide

Bogra Sangbad Desk : Myanmar's president has declared a state of emergency in four regions after heavy floods left 27 people dead.

Monsoon rains over many weeks have led to flooding in most of the country (also known as Burma).

Myanmar's President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency in four regions - Chin, Magwe, Sagaing and Rakhine.

Thousands of people are sheltering in monasteries, but one report said people from the Rohingya Muslim minority were turned away from some shelters.

The Myanmar Times said security forces turned away Rohingya Muslims from abandoned schools and community centres in the western Rakhine state.

The United Nations says 140,000 people in Rakhine are living in camps near the region's capital, Sittwe. Most are Rohingya Muslims.

Myanmar has suffered heavy rain and landslides for weeks, but wind and rain from Cyclone Komen added to damage in recent days.

The AFP agency quoted one director of the social welfare ministry as saying that "most of the country" was flooded.

All but one of Myanmar's 14 provinces was affected by the rains, and aid groups were struggling to reach those affected, he said.

The western states of Chin and Rakhine have been worst affected, the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported.

The newspaper said those regions "have seen huge destruction and face difficulty returning to normal".

Pierre Peron, the spokesman for the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Myanmar, said some towns in Rakhine state were completely cut off.

More than half a million acres of rice paddy fields have been flooded, the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation said.

On Saturday, the UN said it was to send emergency teams to assess the need for food, drinking water and shelter.

Areas close to the former capital, Yangon, have also been badly affected.

"This is much, much worse than normal," Toe Zaw Latt, the Myanmar bureau chief for the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) network, told the BBC from Yangon.

On Friday, Ko Myo Zaw Lin, a journalist with DVB, was filmed carrying out a live interview in flood waters up to his chest in the southern city of Bago.

The rains in Myanmar come days after at least 17 people were killed in floods in Vietnam.

Parts of India, including Manipur and West Bengal, have also been badly flooded.

Source : BBC Online