Sri Lanka and Indonesia deployed military personnel on Monday to help victims of devastating flooding that has killed nearly 1,000 people across four countries in Asia in recent days, reports BSS.
Separate weather systems brought torrential, extended rainfall to the entire island of Sri Lanka and large parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra, southern Thailand and northern Malaysia last week.
Arriving in North Sumatra on Monday, Indonesia President Prabowo Subianto said the government’s “priority now is how to immediately send the necessary aid.”
“There are several isolated villages that God willing, we can reach,” he added, saying the government was deploying helicopters and aircraft to aid the relief effort.
Prabowo has come under increasing pressure to declare a national emergency in response to flooding and landslides that have killed at least 442 people, with hundreds more missing.
Unlike his Sri Lankan counterpart, he has also not publicly called for international assistance.
The toll is the deadliest in a natural disaster in Indonesia since a massive 2018 earthquake and subsequent tsunami killed over 2,000 people in Sulawesi.
The government has sent three warships carrying aid and two hospital ships to some of the worst-hit areas, where many roads remain impassable.
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