by Yee Mon Oo
Heavy and continuous rainfall starting on 27 July flooded vast areas of Kayin State, Myanmar, over the coming days displacing more than 25,000 people from their homes. As part of the ActionAid Myanmar emergency response team, two colleagues and I set out by bus from Yangon early morning of 2 August. We were headed to the State capital, Pha-An, to engage with and support relief efforts of the government as well as our local partner organisation.
We felt the effect of the natural disaster well before reaching our destination. Shortly after entering Kayin State the highway was flooded. We had to stop to empty the trunk of all luggage before driving on into the water, which soon covered the wheels of the bus entirely. The people of Kayin State are facing floods every year, but this one is much worse than usual.
We arrived in Pha-Ann around 2:30 where we met with the Finance Minister of Kayin State, who is also the chairperson of the disaster response, to arrange ActionAid’s contribution to the government relief effort.
The Finance Minister took us to a relocation centre in Pha-An Township where I had the chance to talk to one woman who had been displaced by the flood:
“My son and daughter went to this relocation centre first. I had to move all our property myself since I am widow, and while I did that I fell down from my house because I could not see the stairs for water,” said Daw Hmway, 47, in tears while showing me bruises around her waist.
The living conditions in the relocation centre were highly uncomfortable. Too many people cramped together on too less space, sleeping on the bare cement floor with an inadequate number of mosquito nets to protect them from dengue fever and other mosquito borne diseases.
Afterwards we met with our local partner organisation and other INGOs. I was exhausted by the time we finished our work well past midnight.
Next morning we went to more remote villages in our project area. We started out by motorbike, but soon had to find a boat in order to continue our trip. Once we reached the village, we realised that we also needed the boat to move around from one house to another.
In certain parts of the village we could wade through the water. However, this is not easy at all, and quite risky because you cannot see poisonous snakes, holes in the ground and other dangers. One of our village volunteers had fallen into a deep under-water hole and her mobile phone was damaged beyond repair.
I could tell from the expression on the villagers’ faces that they were depressed about the situation, and tried to comfort people by listening to their stories:
“We don’t have anything left. No rice, nothing. My husband and I already had to work hard together for our daily survival. But now we don’t have work. We have to borrow rice from neighbours and have moved to a common building of the village. It is too cold at night and we don’t have enough blankets so the whole family sleeps close to each others to stay warm,” said Manaw Haryi, 36.
Locals also told me that it is a big problem that people are not aware of how to prepare in advance of the annual floods. We need to support people through proper disaster risk reduction programmes. It was sad for me to see so much agony and pain. Not least because the people of Kayin State have already suffered so much from armed ethnic conflict.
After inspecting the situation in the village we went back to Pha-An to plan the continuous support to affected people. We decided to distribute rice, oil, fish paste and dry noodles in the affected remote villages.