The collective death toll from rampant flooding across Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia this year has risen to 2,230, even as as relief and rescue efforts continue for the third week in cyclone-battered Sri Lanka, officials said on Friday.
The floods and landslides, triggered by heavy rainfall, have wreaked havoc in Southeast Asia since mid-November. Most recently, Cyclone Ditwah hit the island nation of Sri Lanka, inundating the country with rains and leaving behind a trail of death and destruction.
The mounting death toll, according to Japanese researchers, is also linked to the rare formation of a cyclone in the Strait of Malacca, which impacted Indonesia and Thailand.
For the Malacca Strait region, heavy rainfall clubbed with rising global mean surface temperature makes the occurrence of extreme weather events more likely to occur by up to 50 per cent, according to a World Weather Attribution report.
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“Percentage of rainfall increased by 160 per cent in these regions, and it became more intense due to the warm climes,” the statement added.
In Sri Lanka, death toll from the cyclone has risen to 639, with more than 203 people still missing as of Friday. The disaster has also displaced more than 2.3 million people in the country.
In Indonesia’s Sumatra Island flooding, 990 more people have been killed, say reports.
International aid bodies from countries such as the United States and India are leading most rescue and relief operations in Sri Lanka, with the US providing $2 million in aid to the island country, while India’s Operation Sagar Bandhu continues relief efforts through the delivery of humanitarian aid and disaster relief (HADR).
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