MAWLAMYINE: The
death toll from a landslide triggered by monsoon rains in eastern Myanmar rose
to at least 34, an official said yesterday, as emergency workers continued a
desperate search through thick mud for scores more feared missing. A huge brown
gash on the hillside marked where the deluge of mud flooded onto Ye Pyar Kone
village in Mon state on Friday, wiping out 16 homes.

Search and rescue
teams worked through the night with excavators and their bare hands trying to
find survivors and recover bodies from the deep sludge, continuing through
yesterday. "We found 34 dead, and the search for dead bodies is still
ongoing," local administrator Myo Min Tun told AFP. So far, 47 people have
been injured while officials believe that more than 80 people could still be
missing. Myanmar is battered annually by a monsoon season which strikes
countries across Southeast Asia, leaving tens of thousands displaced from
flooded homes and setting off deadly landslides.

Aerial pictures
of Ye Pyar Kone village showed shattered remnants of rooftops and other debris
from the houses strewn next to trucks knocked over by the force of the
onslaught. Its hillside temple was left inundated, leaving the pagoda's golden
spire peeking out from beneath the mud. Htay Htay Win, 32 said that two of her
daughters and five other relatives had still not been found. She only survived
because she had left her home minutes earlier to look at the flooding nearby.
"I heard a huge noise and turned round to see my home being hit by the
mud," she said, crying.

Mud and water

Rescue workers
yesterday continued to carry out excavated bodies wrapped in plastic to waiting
ambulances, wading through pools of water and ankle-deep sludge. Crying
relatives of the missing watched on helpless under a steady torrent of rain, as
nearby floodwaters edged closer to the village.

Tin Htay, who
escaped with his family from their home, described his efforts to rescue others
trapped by the mud. "I dragged a woman and two children from a car but I
could not reach two other people, so I had to leave them," the 30-year-old
said. Emergency crews had to unblock the main highway from Yangon to
Mawlamyine, buried under six feet of sludge. Torrential downpours have burst
riverbanks across the country while coastal communities have been warned of
higher tides.

In the town of
Shwegyin in eastern Bago region, residents waded out through waist-deep waters
or waited to be rescued by boat after the Sittaung river burst its banks,
swallowing entire homes. Around 89,000 people have been displaced by floods in
recent weeks, although many have since been able to return home, according to
the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Vietnam has also
experienced heavy flooding this week with at least eight people killed in the
country's central highlands and rescuers using a zipline to carry dozens of
others to safety.- AFP