More than 900 deaths reported due to severe weather in Indonesia

The death toll from the storm on the Indonesian island of Sumatra rose to at least 908 on Saturday. 410 people are also still missing. News agencies report this based on the Indonesian disaster agency.

The Indonesian island was hit hard by Cyclone Senyar last week. Entire villages were destroyed as a result. Almost the entire north of the island was extremely affected, with the damage being greatest in the provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra.

According to the governor of Aceh province in Sumatra, Muzakir Manaf, there is now a threat of famine on the island. This is especially true in remote areas that emergency responders have not yet been able to reach. “People are not dying from the floods, but from hunger,” he said, according to the ANP news agency. Nothing remains of parts of the Aceh-Tamiang region. “Many villages and districts are just names.”

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According to the Indonesian government, declaring a state of emergency is not necessary. She believes that the local authorities have the situation sufficiently under control. Aid organizations asked for this precisely because help would then be available to victims more quickly and money would be easier to release.

Exceptional combination of circumstances

Heavy rains and two tropical cyclones, causing severe flooding and landslides, have claimed at least 1,790 lives in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia since November 19. There is an exceptional meteorological coincidence in the region.

Southeast Asia was hit by two cyclones and one typhoon. As a result, the affected countries experienced severe flooding and landslides. Climate change is causing seawater to warm, worsening the normal rainy season. In addition, two separate ocean cycles had an unfortunate coincidence.

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