Hardships mount in Indonesia and Sri Lanka as flood tolls rise

by AFP Staff Writers
Jakarta (AFP) Dec 8, 2025

Officials in flood-hit parts of Indonesia reported shortages of food, shelter, and medicine as the death toll reached 950 Monday following weeks of heavy rain.

A slew of tropical storms and monsoon rains has pummelled Southeast and South Asia, triggering landslides and flash floods from the rainforests of Indonesia's western Sumatra island to the highland plantations of Sri Lanka.

"Everything is lacking, especially medical personnel. We are short on doctors," Muzakir Manaf, governor of Indonesia's Aceh province, told reporters late Sunday.

"Basic necessities are also important. It's not just one or two items."

Indonesia's national disaster mitigation agency (BNPB) said 950 people in Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra had been killed, while 274 were missing.

The downpours and subsequent landslides injured at least 5,000 people and devastated infrastructure.

Hospitals, schools and offices are in ruins, while many bridges have been destroyed, cutting off communities.

Costs to rebuild after the disaster could run up to 51.82 trillion rupiah ($3.1 billion), the BNPB said late Sunday.

- Extra troops -

In Sri lanka, the military deployed thousands of extra troops to aid recovery efforts there after a devastating cyclone cut a swathe of destruction killing 627 people

More than two million people -- nearly 10 percent of the population -- have been affected by Cyclone Ditwah, the worst on the island this century.

Sri Lanka is expecting further heavy monsoon rains on Monday, topping five centimetres in many places, the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) said. It issued warnings of further landslides.

Army chief Lasantha Rodrigo said 38,500 security personnel had been deployed to boost recovery and clean-up operations in flood-affected and landslide-hit areas, nearly doubling the initial deployment.

"Since the disaster, security forces have been able to rescue 31,116 people who were in distress," Rodrigo said in a statement.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake unveiled a recovery package, offering 10 million rupees ($33,000) for victims to buy land in safer areas and rebuild.

There is also livelihood support and cash assistance to replace kitchen utensils and bedding and to buy food.

It is not clear how much the relief package will cost the government, which is still emerging from economic meltdown in 2022 when it ran out of foreign exchange to finance even the most essential imports.

Dissanayake has said the government cannot fund reconstruction alone and has appealed for foreign assistance, including from the International Monetary Fund.

In Indonesia's Banda Aceh, long queues formed for drinking water and fuel, and prices of basic commodities such as eggs were skyrocketing, an AFP correspondent said.

Seasonal monsoon rains are a feature of life in South Asia and Southeast Asia, flooding rice fields and nourishing the growth of other key crops.

However, climate change is making the phenomenon more erratic, unpredictable, and deadly throughout the regions.

Starvation fears as more heavy rain threaten flood-ruined Indonesia
Banda Aceh, Indonesia (AFP) Dec 6, 2025 - Further heavy rain threatened Indonesia's flood-ravaged island of Sumatra on Saturday as the governor of one hard-hit province warned that the death toll could climb beyond 883 because of starvation.

A chain of tropical storms and monsoonal rains has pummelled Southeast and South Asia, triggering landslides and flash floods from the Sumatran rainforest to the highland plantations of Sri Lanka.

Some 1,770 people have been killed in natural disasters unfolding across Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam since last week.

Indonesia's national weather agency said rain could return on Saturday to the provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra, where floods have swept away roads, smothered houses in silt and cut off supplies.

Aceh governor Muzakir Manaf said response teams were still searching for bodies in "waist-deep" mud.

However, starvation was one of the gravest threats now hanging over remote and inaccessible villages.

"Many people need basic necessities. Many areas remain untouched in the remote areas of Aceh," he told reporters.

"People are not dying from the flood, but from starvation. That's how it is."

Entire villages had been washed away in the rainforest-cloaked Aceh Tamiang region, Muzakir said.

"The Aceh Tamiang region is completely destroyed, from the top to the bottom, down to the roads and down to the sea.

"Many villages and sub-districts are now just names," he said.

Aceh resident Munawar Liza Zainal said he felt "betrayed" by the Indonesian government, which has so far shrugged off pressure to declare a national disaster.

"This is an extraordinary disaster that must be faced with extraordinary measures," he told AFP, echoing frustrations voiced by other flood victims.

"If national disaster status is only declared later, what's the point?"

Declaring a national disaster would free up resources and help government agencies coordinate their response.

Analysts have suggested Indonesia could be reluctant to declare a disaster -- and seek additional foreign aid -- because it would show it was not up to the task.

Indonesia's government this week insisted it could handle the fallout.

- Climate calamity -

The scale of devastation has only just become clear in other parts of Sumatra as engorged rivers shrink and floodwaters recede.

AFP photos showed muddy villagers salvaging silt-encrusted furniture from flooded houses in Aek Ngadol, North Sumatra.

Humanitarian groups fear that the scale of calamity could be without precedent, even for a nation prone to natural disasters.

Indonesia's death toll rose to 883 on Saturday morning, according to the disaster management agency, with 520 people missing.

Sri Lanka's death toll jumped by more than 100 on Friday to 607, as the government warned that fresh rains raised the risk of new landslides.

Thailand has reported 276 deaths and Malaysia two, while at least two people were killed in Vietnam after heavy rains triggered a series of landslides.

Seasonal monsoon rains are a feature of life in Southeast Asia, flooding rice fields and nourishing the growth of other key crops.

However, climate change is making the phenomenon more erratic, unpredictable and deadly throughout the region.

Environmentalists and Indonesia's government have also suggested logging and deforestation exacerbated landslides and flooding in Sumatra.