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.
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, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said the government’s “priority now is how to immediately send the necessary aid”.
Advertisement
“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.
Advertisement