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The death toll from floods and landslides triggered by Cyclone Ditwah rose sharply to 334 Sunday, Sri Lanka's disaster agency said, with many more still missing.It is the worst natural disaster to hit the island in two decades, and officials said the extent of damage in the worst-affected central region was only just being revealed as relief workers cleared roads blocked by fallen trees and mudslides.The Disaster Management Centre (DMC) said the death toll had risen to 334, up from 212 earlier Sunday, with nearly 400 missing and more than 1.3mn people across the island affected by the record rains.President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who declared a state of emergency to deal with the disaster, vowed to build back with international support."We are facing the largest and most challenging natural disaster in our history," he said in an address to the nation. "Certainly, we will build a better nation than what existed before."The losses and damage are the worst since the devastating 2004 Asian tsunami that killed around 31,000 people and left more than a million homeless.Rain had subsided across Sri Lanka but low-lying areas of the capital were flooded on Sunday and authorities were bracing for a major relief operation.A Bell 212 helicopter carrying food for patients stranded at a hospital just north of Colombo crashed into a river on Sunday evening. All five crew members were taken to a nearby hospital.Another helicopter sent from India rescued 24 people Sunday, including a pregnant woman and a man in a wheelchair, marooned in the central town of Kotmale, about 90km northeast of Colombo, officials said.Pakistan was also sending rescue teams, the Sri Lankan Air Force said, while Japan will also send a team to assess Sri Lanka's immediate needs and has pledged assistance.The air force said two infants and a 10-year-old child had also been rescued from a hospital in the northern town of Chilaw, which was submerged on Saturday.Authorities said flood levels in the capital would take at least a day to recede, while dry weather was also forecast. Cyclone Ditwah moved north towards India on Saturday.Selvi, 46, a resident of the Colombo suburb of Wennawatte, left her flooded home Sunday, carrying four bags of clothes and valuables."My house is completely flooded. I don't know where to go, but I hope there is some safe shelter where I can take my family," she told AFP.Receding water levels in the town of Manampitiya, 250km northeast of Colombo, revealed massive destruction."Manampitiya is a flood-prone town, but I have never seen such a volume of water," said 72-year-old resident S Sivanandan.He told the local News Centre portal that businesses and property had been extensively damaged. A car had flipped upside down in front of his shop, he said.A woman in central Wellawaya said she heard a loud noise and went outside to see boulders rolling down a mountainside before stopping near her home."I saw trees falling and moving with the boulders. We are afraid to go back to our homes," she told reporters after moving to a shelter on safer ground.The National Blood Transfusion Service said supplies were short even though there have been relatively few injuries.The National Building Research Organisation, which monitors the stability of hills, said there was a high risk of further landslides because mountain slopes were still saturated with rainwater.The worst flooding since the turn of the century occurred in June 2003, when 254 people were killed. 

Indonesian and Thai authorities raced Sunday to clear debris and find hundreds of missing people as the death toll from devastating floods and landslides across Southeast Asia topped 600.Heavy monsoon rain overwhelmed swaths of Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia this week, leaving thousands of people stranded without shelter or critical supplies.At least two areas of Indonesia's worst-affected Sumatra island were still unreachable Sunday, and authorities said they had deployed two warships from Jakarta to deliver aid.Central Tapanuli and Sibolga city "require full attention due to being isolated", National Disaster agency head Suharyanto said in a statement, adding that the ships were expected in Sibolga today.The death toll in Indonesia rose to 442, while 402 were still missing, according to a tally published Sunday by the disaster authority.It said at least 646 people had been injured.In Sungai Nyalo village, about 100km from West Sumatra's capital Padang, floodwaters had mostly receded Sunday, leaving homes, vehicles and crops coated in thick grey mud.Authorities had not yet begun clearing roads, residents told AFP, and no outside assistance had arrived."Most villagers chose to stay; they didn't want to leave their houses behind," said Idris, 55, who, like many Indonesians, goes by one name.Across the island towards the north coast, an endangered Sumatran elephant lay buried in thick mud and debris near damaged buildings in Meureudu town.In Thailand, where at least 162 people were killed in one of the worst floods in a decade, authorities continued to deliver aid and clear the damage.Relief measures rolled out by the Thai government include compensation of up to 2mn baht ($62,000) for households that lost family members.However, there has been growing public criticism of Thailand's flood response, and two local officials have been suspended over their alleged failures.Two people were killed in Malaysia after floods left stretches of northern Perlis state underwater.The annual monsoon season, typically between June and September, often brings heavy rain, triggering landslides and flash floods.A tropical storm has exacerbated conditions, and the tolls in Indonesia and Thailand rank among the highest in floods in those countries in recent years.Climate change has affected storm patterns, including the duration and intensity of the season, leading to heavier rainfall, flash flooding and stronger wind gusts. 

Heavy rain, severe flooding and landslides in Vietnam have killed at least 90 people in the last week, authorities said Sunday, leaving others stranded on rooftops and mountain roadways blocked. Relentless rain has lashed south-central Vietnam since late October and popular holiday destinations have been hit by several rounds of flooding, with economic losses estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.Whole sections of coastal Nha Trang city were inundated last week, while deadly landslides struck highland passes around the Da Lat tourist hub. In the hard-hit mountainous province of Dak Lak, 61-year-old farmer Mach Van Si said the floodwaters left him and his wife stranded on their sheet-metal rooftop for two nights."Our neighborhood was completely destroyed. Nothing was left. Everything was covered in mud," he told AFP on Sunday. By the time they climbed a ladder to their roof, Si said he was no longer scared. "I just thought we were going to die because there was no way out," he said. More than 60 deaths, of the 90 recorded since November 16, were in Dak Lak, where tens of thousands of homes were inundated, the environment ministry said in a statement.At the Tuy Hoa market in the province, the floodwaters have receded but Vo Huu Du, 40, said some of the hats, bags and shoes she sells were still soaked or lying in mud. "My goods look like one big soggy mess," she told AFP. "I don't even know where to start." She and other vendors once considered five centimetres (two inches) off the ground a safe level to raise their merchandise to avoid flood damage -- but no more."All these years, the highest water level back in 1993 only reached our ankles," said Du. "But now the water has come in over one metre (three feet) high." "All the vendors are devastated, not just me," she added. Ceramics seller Nguyen Van Thoai, 60, gestured to piles of damaged goods to be cleared from paths between vendor stalls, calling it "a real loss"."I don't even know where to put all this market stock," he said. "We might need to clean it for a month and still won't be done." More than 80,000 hectares (200,000 acres) of rice and other crops across Dak Lak and four other provinces were damaged in the last week, with over 3.2 million livestock or poultry killed or washed away by floodwaters.Authorities have used helicopters to airdrop aid to communities cut off by flooding and landslides, with the government deploying tens of thousands of personnel to deliver clothing, water-purification tablets, instant noodles and other supplies to affected areas, state outlet Tuoi Tre News said.Several locations on national highways remained blocked on Sunday due to flooding or landslides, according to the environment ministry, and some railway sections were still suspended. The ministry estimated economic losses of $343mn across five provinces due to the floods.Natural disasters have left 279 people dead or missing in Vietnam and caused more than $2bn in damage between January and October, according to the national statistics office. The Southeast Asian nation is prone to heavy rain between June and September, but scientists have identified a pattern of human-driven climate change making extreme weather more frequent and destructive.

The death toll from torrential rain, flooding and landslides in central Vietnam has risen to 55, with 13 people reported missing, the country's disaster agency said on Saturday. Rainfall exceeded 1,900mm (74.8 inches) in some parts of central Vietnam over the past week.The region is a major coffee production belt and home to popular beaches, but it is also prone to storms and floods. Nearly half of the fatalities were in Dak Lak province, where 27 people have died, while 14 people have died in Khanh Hoa province.**media[384808]**The government estimates the flooding has cost the economy around 8.98tn dong ($341mn). Over 235,000 houses were flooded and early 80,000 hectares of crops were damaged, Vietnam's disaster agency said.

At least 42 people have died in Nepal due to landslides and floods triggered by heavy rains over the past 36 hours, authorities reported today. A Nepal Police spokesperson confirmed that 18 of the fatalities occurred in the eastern district of Ilam near the Indian border, while three others died from lightning strikes in southern Nepal. Local officials said several major highways have been closed or damaged by landslides and floods, leaving hundreds stranded and severely disrupting domestic flights, though international flights continue to operate. In southeastern Nepal, rising water levels of the Koshi River — known for causing annual deadly floods in India's Bihar state — have surpassed danger thresholds. The capital, Kathmandu, surrounded by hills, experienced river flooding that inundated roads and homes, isolating the city from the rest of the country.

The representative of Qatar Charity (QC) in Afghanistan carried out a field visit to Kuner province, in co-ordination with a rescue team from Qatar, to assess the humanitarian impact caused by the ongoing landslides and aftershocks following the powerful earthquake that struck the southeastern part of the country.The disaster has resulted in thousands of deaths and injuries and has left hundreds of thousands displaced.“We witnessed overwhelming destruction and immense human suffering,” Mumin Shah, the QC representative in Afghanistan, stated: “Entire villages were cut off due to landslides and aftershocks, with significant casualties. We observed continuous tremors and landslides during our visits.”“From both air and ground, we saw widespread devastation, collapsed homes, and displaced communities,” he continued. “Families sat beside the rubble of their homes in mourning, while survivors struggled to cope with severe shortages of food, water, and medical care.”“We observed families taking their children in hands towards the settled area for seeking shelter and protection,” Shah added.In light of the scale of the crisis, the QC is currently preparing to launch emergency relief efforts expected to include emergency medical care, safe drinking water, temporary shelters, and food baskets, along with sanitation facilities in declared camps.According to the latest official reports, the death toll has risen to 2,205, while the number of injured has exceeded 3,700, following the 6.0-magnitude earthquake.The disaster has caused extensive damage to thousands of homes, particularly in Kuner province and surrounding areas, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in what is considered one of the most devastating natural disasters the country has witnessed in recent years.

In the remote mountain village of Tarasin in Sudan's western Darfur, three successive landslides struck without warning last week. "The people lost everything," Francesco Lanino, operations director at Save the Children, said via Zoom from Port Sudan after a team from the charity arrived in the devastated village in Sudan's Jebel Marra region. Torrential rains had saturated the mountains above and when the hillside finally gave way, it collapsed in seconds burying homes, livestock and entire families under a tide of mud. "When our team arrived in the village, of course it was hard for them to imagine that under the mud there was an entire village and there were hundreds of bodies", said Lanino. The latest figures from local authorities and Save the Children put the death toll at 373 confirmed bodies recovered, many of them children. But the true figure is believed to be far higher, with more than 1,000 people feared dead. Only 150 survivors, including 40 children, have been found from Tarasin and surrounding villages so far, according to Save the Children. DIGGING WITH THEIR HANDS "There's a lot of pain and tears," said Lanino. "They've lost many of their relatives, many children. And of course they don't know... how to rescue them or try to recover the bodies." With no tools or machinery available, survivors were forced to dig through the mud with their bare hands, desperately searching for lost loved ones, Lanino said. "The survivors were left with no home, no food, no livestock, nothing," he said. "They don't know where to go because all the areas are somehow impacted by the heavy rains. They don't really know which is a safe place to go." Over the course of three days, Tarasin and neighbouring communities were struck by three separate landslides. The first, at 5 pm (1500 GMT) on Sunday, swept through Tarasin in seconds, engulfing the entire village at the base of the mountain. Two more followed on Monday and Tuesday, with one hitting a nearby valley and the other crashing down on residents who were trying to recover bodies from the initial disaster. "There are a lot of people that are still scared that a new landslide might come. "They heard some cracks coming from the mountains." As well as experiencing heavy rain, Jebel Marra is one of Sudan's most geologically active regions, sitting atop a major tectonic fault line. The General Authority for Geological Research has warned that continued landslides could lead to "catastrophic" humanitarian and environmental consequences. The mudslides also wiped out around 5,000 livestock including cows, goats and camels leaving families without food or income. Save the Children has deployed 11 staff, including doctors, nurses, midwives and social workers to the village. After travelling for ten gruelling hours on donkeyback from the remote town of Golo across rugged terrain with no roads and under heavy rain, the team arrived on Thursday. CHOLERA FEARS The NGO has set up an emergency health post, along with psychosocial support groups for women and children. But the challenges remain immense. With flooding contaminating water sources, cholera is now a major threat. "There was already some cholera cases in the area. So we are also very worried there could be a new and huge outbreak of cholera among the survivors but also in all the areas nearby." Urgent requests from survivors included food, blankets and shelter. The landslides struck during Sudan's peak flooding season, which runs from July to October, and amid a war that has triggered one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent history, according to the United Nations. More than two years of fighting between rival generals has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions and left some areas suffering from famine and cholera. The Jebel Marra region, which has no mobile phone network or road access, is controlled by the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army, led by Abdulwahid al-Nur a rebel group that has largely remained uninvolved in the fighting.