{"id":9895,"date":"2026-08-10T21:34:54","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T15:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/?p=9895"},"modified":"2026-08-10T21:34:54","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T15:04:54","slug":"how-should-the-flood-disasters-in-ayeyarwady-and-sagaing-regions-be-addressed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/2026\/08\/how-should-the-flood-disasters-in-ayeyarwady-and-sagaing-regions-be-addressed\/","title":{"rendered":"How Should the Flood Disasters in Ayeyarwady and Sagaing Regions Be Addressed?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Myanmar Spring Chronicle \u2013 Scenes from August<\/em> 9<\/h2>\n

(MoeMaKa), August 10, 2026<\/em><\/p>\n

How Should the Flood Disasters in Ayeyarwady and Sagaing Regions Be Addressed?<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On the night of July 30, an embankment holding back the Ngawun River west of Laymyethna town breached, sending river water surging into surrounding areas and inundating towns and villages. While reports and images of the flooding were filling newspapers and television screens, another flood disaster was unfolding in Sagaing Region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the Thaphanseik Dam, located in the Kanbalu and Kyunhla area, water had reached capacity and was released to protect the safety of the dam. As a result, numerous townships downstream and villages throughout the Mu River basin were flooded. More than a dozen people have reportedly been swept away by the current and lost their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the monsoon exceptionally strong across upper Myanmar, western parts of the country, and the southern coastal regions, rivers and streams have risen significantly. At the same time, years of deforestation and excessive extraction of natural resources have depleted the forests that once absorbed and retained rainfall, while rivers and streams have deteriorated and become increasingly silted up. Consequently, flooding has become more destructive and communities are now more vulnerable to natural disasters than in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who have engaged in unrestricted logging of natural forests; extracted gemstones, minerals, and gold; used heavy machinery to mine for gold in forests, mountains, rivers, and streams; as well as the organizations and individuals who granted permission for such activities in return for money are generally not the ones who directly suffer when disasters such as these occur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Individuals and organizations involved in natural-resource extraction tend to have sufficient financial means to avoid living in disaster-prone areas. They can relocate to major cities or other places relatively safe from natural hazards. Those who actually bear the consequences are ordinary people who bear little or no responsibility for the environmental destruction. Many already survive from one day\u2019s earnings to the next, and their livelihoods have been damaged by years of war. Now they must endure natural disasters on top of those hardships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One example is Hpakant in Kachin State. Despite more than five or six years of ongoing warfare, excessive jade mining has continued without interruption. Flooding, submerged homes, landslides at jade-mining sites, and deaths among freelance jade scavengers have become so frequent that they occur not merely every year, but intermittently throughout the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The profits generated by jade extraction largely go to major companies holding mining concessions and to armed organizations that collect money from granting concessions and levy taxes on the jade produced\u2014organizations that cannot properly be described as governments and do not possess the characteristics of legitimate state institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who control the largest share of the rights and profits from these areas have never been the ones forced to endure the natural disasters that strike them. Instead, the victims are ordinary people at the bottom: wage laborers, small-scale vendors, and people providing basic services in these communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same bitter reality can be seen along the Chindwin and Ayeyarwady rivers, where major gold-mining operations and armed organizations involved in resource extraction are generally not among those who suffer the consequences when natural disasters strike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the people of Myanmar, having to confront disasters of this magnitude during a civil war and amid continuing armed conflict is an extraordinarily unfortunate situation. When telephone and radio communications are disrupted, access to information is limited, livelihoods cannot function normally, and travel from one place to another is restricted, communities facing severe flooding are left with very few options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Sagaing Region, many of the areas currently affected by flooding are places where the military regime controls mainly the urban centers, while much of the surrounding territory is under the control or influence of the Sagaing Federal Unit government, People\u2019s Defence Forces (PDFs), and other resistance forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding the flooding in Sagaing Region, the military regime\u2019s information website has reported that police officers, firefighters, and social relief organizations provided assistance to some villages in Ye-U Township and some villages in Mingin Township. It has also reported that farmland in 33 village tracts in Shwebo District has been flooded and that security personnel have been carrying out necessary relief operations in three villages in Kyunhla Township where agricultural land was inundated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, there has been little or no reporting about many of the other townships and villages affected by the floods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Ayeyarwady Region, military leader Min Aung Hlaing visited Laymyethna Township and surrounding flooded areas on August 8, and the regime publicly called on wealthy crony businesspeople to make financial donations. Yet when it comes to the flooding in Sagaing Region, even senior officials such as the regime-appointed Sagaing Region chief minister have not been seen visiting the disaster-affected areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hundreds of thousands of people are reportedly being affected by the flooding in Sagaing Region, but media outlets controlled by the military regime have provided relatively little coverage. This gives the impression that areas administered by the PDF and the National Unity Government (NUG) are being largely ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, there is also a legitimate question about how the NUG, People\u2019s Administration Teams (Pa-Ah-Pha), PDF forces, and other revolutionary armed organizations that exercise significant control over these areas are responding to the disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far, there have been relatively few reports of social welfare and emergency relief organizations from other parts of the country entering Sagaing Region to provide assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For revolutionary armed groups and administrative organizations seeking to rescue and assist flood-affected communities in Sagaing Region, there are almost certainly major challenges that need to be addressed\u2014including coordination among different organizations, securing sufficient relief funds, and obtaining the management experience and capacity required to conduct an effective disaster-response operation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Myanmar Spring Chronicle \u2013 Scenes from August 9 (MoeMaKa), August 10, 2026 How Should the Flood Disasters in Ayeyarwady and Sagaing Regions Be Addressed? On the night of July 30, an embankment holding back the Ngawun River west of Laymyethna…<\/p>\n

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