Over 1,100 victims from cyclones in South-East Asia: extreme events hit the most defenseless populations

South and Southeast Asia are trapped in an unprecedented hydrogeological crisis. Two separate cyclones, Ditwah and Senyar, generated floods and landslides that wiped out entire communities, leaving behind over 1,100 confirmed victims and hundreds of missing people across Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand. It is not an isolated extraordinary event: it is the new climatic normality, which strikes with unprecedented violence those who have the least means to defend themselves.

Sri Lanka

The most serious damage was recorded in Sri Lanka, where Cyclone Ditwah caused at least 366 deaths and around 360 missing. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake called the calamity the “largest and most difficult natural disaster” in the history of the country, an island of almost 22 million inhabitants already tested by years of economic and civil turbulence. Ditwah flooded more than half of Sri Lanka’s 25 districts, making entire areas inaccessible. About 150 thousand people were evacuated.

“The entire country is a disaster zone, except for a few areas,” said Vinya Ariyaratne of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement. “This is enormous, enormous damage in terms of infrastructure, homes, livelihoods and even businesses.”

While relief efforts from India and Pakistan try to reach isolated areas, the numbers of devastation are solid: over 15,000 houses destroyed and at least 10 bridges and 200 main roads blocked. Infrastructure recovery, with rail services and electricity only partially restored, will be extremely slow and costly. For a country that has just emerged from a financial crisis, the disaster is a violent brake on the attempt at economic recovery.

Indonesia and Thailand

At the same time, Cyclone Senyar lashed South-East Asia. In Indonesia, the victims amount to 604 and the missing exceed 460. The most affected area is Sumatra, where around 300 thousand people were forced to abandon their homes. Food and aid supplies are delayed, and the lack of basic necessities for days has led to serious incidents of looting.

The cry to Sky News from Afrianti, 41 years old, resident of Padang, sums up the catastrophe for those living in precarious conditions: “My house and my business are no longer there… Nothing remains.” The water destroyed over 28,000 homes and directly affected 1.4 million people. President Prabowo Subianto has promised reconstruction, but the humanitarian emergency is immediate.

Thailand has at least 176 victims. In Songkhla province, the city of Hat Yai recorded an exceptional event: 335 millimeters of rain in a single day, the highest figure in the last three centuries. The floods affected around three million people in eight provinces, triggering a massive army mobilization to evacuate patients and reach isolated people.

The logistical effort

Sri Lanka, in particular, is facing a complex logistical emergency. While the local army and navy, supported by external aid, work to liberate submerged villages, access to drinking water remains a critical problem in large areas, increasing the risk of epidemics. In the central hilly areas, traditionally dedicated to tea cultivation, around 218,000 people have found refuge in temporary camps. Along the Kelani River, near Colombo, the fear is not only high water, but also looting: Ganga Niroshini, 46, said she had been shining a flashlight at her house all night, for fear that “drug addicts will enter our homes when the water recedes, or steal our vehicles.” Social fragility worsens in the disaster.

Although train traffic and telecommunications were partially restored on Monday, schools remained closed, a sign that everyday life is still suspended. Cyclone Ditwah then continued towards India, becoming a “deep depression” but still causing three deaths in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, demonstrating its broad and persistent destructive scope.

Climate and inequality

Although the frequency of cyclones and monsoons is historic in the region, it is a fact that their intensity and frequency have increased in recent years due to climate change. If the most serious flood in Sri Lanka in the last 25 years dates back to 2003 (254 deaths), today Ditwah has raised the bar for disaster.

The crucial element of this multiple catastrophe is its relationship with poverty. The climate emergency acts as a risk multiplier, placing the greatest burden on the poorest and most vulnerable populations. The Sri Lankan farmer who sees his fields destroyed after years of crisis, the displaced Indonesian who remains without food for days: they are the primary victims.

Their homes are more fragile, their lands more exposed to landslides and floods, and delays in aid are being felt more dramatically. The Ditwah and Senyar intersecting disaster is proof that climate instability is not just an environmental problem, but a social justice issue that produces thousands of deaths in regions already under economic and civil stress. The challenge for the governments of these nations is now twofold: rebuilding physical infrastructure and strengthening social defenses to face the next inevitable storm.