More than 1,000 dead as catastrophic floods sweep Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Malaysia

Southeast Asia is reeling from a week of catastrophic flooding and landslides that has killed more than 1,000 people across Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Malaysia, a cluster of overlapping disasters triggered by tropical storms and supercharged by climate change.

In North Sumatra, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto arrived Monday promising urgency, not ceremony. The focus now, he said, is “how to immediately send the necessary aid”.

“There are several isolated villages that, God willing, we can reach,” Prabowo added, noting that helicopters, aircraft, hospital ships and three warships have been deployed. His government, however, faces growing pressure to declare a national emergency as the death toll climbs to at least 502, with hundreds still missing.

Unlike Sri Lanka, Prabowo is still avoiding any public call for international assistance.

In parts of West Sumatra, residents like Idris, 55, are refusing to abandon what’s left of their homes, even as entire villages remain coated in thick grey mud.

Sri Lanka, hit by Cyclone Ditwah, is facing devastation on a scale the country has never seen. At least 335 people are confirmed dead, with many still unaccounted for.

A Sri Lankan Air Force pilot was killed on Monday during an emergency landing while delivering aid, one of the many rescue missions taking place as military helicopters fight through landslides blocking access to central regions.

Declaring a nationwide emergency, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake pledged resilience.

“We are facing the largest and most challenging natural disaster in our history,” he said. “Certainly, we will build a better nation than what existed before.”

In southern Thailand, floods have killed at least 176 people, igniting public anger at what many view as a slow or mismanaged response. Two officials have already been suspended.

Across the border in Malaysia’s Perlis state, at least three deaths have been reported as floodwaters swallowed entire neighbourhoods. Aerial photos show homes surrounded by a vast inland sea of brown water.

These storms follow weeks of disasters across the region, including two typhoons in the Philippines last month that killed 242 people. A rare tropical storm intensifying over Sumatra worsened this week’s floods across Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.