Hurricanes and Floods: a study case of Myanmar flood in 2015
Vitor Vieira Vasconcelos
PhD in Natural Sciences
Post-doctoral fellow at Stockholm Environment Institute – Asia Centre
Chayanis Krittasudthacheewa
PhD in Hydrology and Water Resources Engineering
Deputy Director at Stockholm Environment Institute – Asia Centre
Chusit Apirumanekul
PhD in Global Hydrology and Water Resource Engineering
Research Fellow at Stockholm Environment Institute – Asia Centre
This article analyzes the Myanmar floods that happened from July to September 2015.
This flood was caused by a hurricane (tropical cyclone) and monsoonal rains. The damages
caused by the flood are discussed, the physical aspects that triggered the disaster and the extent
of damage are described, and then the prevention and preparedness for this event in Myanmar is
evaluated. Scenes from a fieldwork in Homalin area (within Chindwin Basin, tributary of
Ayeyarwady River) in September 2015 illustrate the flood impacts and how local people
responded to them.
The hurricane Komen happened from July to September 2015 and its landfall was on
Bangladesh (western neighbor of Myanmar), but most of the rainfall concentrated in the western
part of Myanmar (Figures 1 and 2), causing floods.
Figure 1 – Rainfall estimate in South-Southeast Asia in July, 2015. Data: Weather News (2015)
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Figure 2 – Flood affected townships in Myanmar, 2015. Sorce: OCHA (2015)
According to OCHA (2015), the flood affected more than 34.6 million people (66% of
the population in Myanmar), temporally displaced more than 1.6 million and killed at least one
hundred. The same report states that the flood destroyed more than 21,000 houses, 608 schools
and 840,000 acres of farmland, while also damaged more than 468,000 houses and 4,100
schools. The number of affected people in each township in Myanmar can be seen in the map of
Figure 3. As the rivers are the main transportation mode in Myanmar, the heavy stream flow also
hampered navigation in most of Ayeyarwady river, causing economic losses and also impeding
food and other supplies to reach the affected people. The flooded cities had to close most of their
commerce and service buildings for many weeks, causing additional economic losses.
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Figure 3 – Number of people affected by flood per township in Myamar, as of 11th September,
2015. Source: ERCC (2015).
According to IFRC (2015), since June of 2015, Myanmar and Bangladesh were already
receiving heavy rainfall from monsoonal storms. In the end of July, the low pressure zone in the
Pacific Ocean near Bangladesh intensified the storms that grew to the tropical cyclone Komen.
According to ERCC (2015), Komen grew from a depression to a deep depression in 29 July, and
became a cyclonic storm in 30 July. GDACS (2015) classified Komen as a tropical cyclone
storms with maximum wind speed of 74km/h, in 30 July, 2015. The landfall of the Cyclone on
Bangladesh occurred on 30th July (Figure 4). After entering Bangladesh, in 31th July Komen lost
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strength and became again a deep depression (ERCC, 2015), but the it rainfall on Myanmar went
on through August and September. Over 500mm rainfall occurred because of the hurricane,
being more than double of the average rainfall for in many areas of Myanmar (Weather News,
2015).
The heavy rainfall over the already wet soils from the previous Monsoonal rains caused
floods on the Ayeyarwady river basin and other coastal basins in Myanmar (Weather News,
2015). The stream flow in the mid-Ayeyarwady river reached levels of a 25 years flood (Figure
5). The damage of the flood became worse as the heavy rainfall continued through the months of
August and September (Weather News, 2015, and Figure 6).
Figure 4 – Estimated Precipitation from the tropical cyclone Komen in 30th September, 2015.
Source: The Watchers (2015), with data from NASA/JAXA/SAI.
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Figure 5 – Stream-flow of Ayeyarwady River, at station 29. Source: Flood Observatory
(http://floodobservatory.colorado.edu/SiteDisplays/29.htm, accessed 26th September, 2015)
Figure 6 – Rainfall in the catchment of the Ayeyarwady River, at station 29, comparing 2015
with previous years. Source: Flood Observatory
(http://floodobservatory.colorado.edu/SiteDisplays/29.htm, accessed 26th September, 2015)
It is difficult to analyze how an impact of such magnitude could be prevented. Myanmar
is a poor country, and 66 % of the population live in rural area (World Bank, 2015) and these
farmers do not have other alternative then practice subsistence agriculture on the fertile flood
plains of the rivers. Stockholm Environment Institute – Asia Centre (SEI-Asia) undertook a
fieldwork in Myanmar in September, 2015, and was able to evaluate how they manage to adapt
to this situation (pictures included in this article).
Before the flood starts, the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology used its early
warning system, communicating with the village heads in advance (Thein, 2015). However, 55
% of Myanmar population live in isolated communities that lack electricity (World Bank, 2015)
and usually do not have means for fast communication.
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The farmers in Myanmar usually build elevated houses (Figure 7), that can face the most
usual floods. However, the flood in 2015 overpassed most of these houses (Figure 8). Other
farmers have floating houses, that can cope better with the floods (Figure 9). Many families from
flooded farms fled to shelters near the temples that are usually built on the highest spots of the
landscape (Figure 10). Usually the farmers store rice from the previous season to eat during the
flood time, but if the flood lasts for a long period, such as in 2015, and the boats carrying food
cannot sail through the rivers, then the situation starts to be critical. Many farmers also turn into
subsistence fishery (Figure 11), to increase their food safety. As the flood got worse, it flooded
not only farmlands but also some riverine cities that were built on the river levees, causing
higher economic losses (Figure 12).
Figure 7 – Suspended farm house on Uru
Figure 8 – Flooded house in Chindwin River,
River, Homalin, September, 2015
Township of Homalin, Myanmar, September,
2015.
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Figure 9 – Floating house in the township of Homalin, Myanmar, September, 2015.
Figure 10 – Population flee from the flood to a shelter near a temple in the township of Homalin,
Myanmar, in September, 2015.
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Figure 11 – Farmers fishing in the Uru River, township of Homalin, Myanmar, in September,
2015.
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Figure 12 – Flood in the city of Homalin, aerial view September, 2015
OCHA (2015) estimated that US$75.5 million dollars would be needed for emergency
response to this disaster, but at 16th September, 2015, only 23 million had been funded (30% of
the amount needed). With the available funds, 455,000 people received food assistance, 13,000
people received shelter kits, 5,000 people received dignity kits (clothes, underwear, sanitary
napkins, soap, toothbrushes, towels and other hygiene items), 1,525 mobile health clinics
provided services in the affected areas, and 136,000 water sources had been cleaned. The
emergency response also included training on psychosocial attendance for affected people and a
lifeline radio program to inform people about the flood extension and emergency responses.
Due to the increasing mining activities in Myanmar after 1989 (Earthrights International,
2004), most of the villagers and farmers started to install private wells as source of drinking
water, because they were afraid of heavy metal contamination in the river water. However, one
critical vulnerability is that many of these wells have been flooded in 2015. Although the
international funds covered cleaning some of the community wells of the villages, most of the
individuals do not have awareness about how to deal with their own wells. After the flood, most
of them just pump out the water from their wells until it gets clear again, and then re-start
drinking it again. The correct procedure, according to Atiles and Vendrell (2012), would be
using chlorine to disinfect the wells after the flood. Without this procedure, most of the villagers
are exposed to bacteria contamination, causing diseases such as diarrhea and cholera.
Floods in Myanmar share similarities with floods faced by other countries in South and
Southeast Asia, such as India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. The large flood
plains downstream of the Himalayas are densely populated by poor subsistence rice farmers.
Although these farmers have developed ways to cope with the regular floods, the damage of
extremely high floods are immense, especially because the government of developing countries
do not have money to provide relief, and then have to rely on international donations. In these
extreme floods, many cities that usually are not flooded suddenly have water raising on the
streets, causing high economic damage. One example was the flood in Bangkok, Thailand, in
2011, when the Chao Phraya river overflowed and caused a damage of 500 billion dollars
(Thongsawas, 2013). Moreover, recent studies (World Bank, 2013) have shown that the
frequency of extreme events of rainfall is likely to increase in South and Southeast Asia, due the
ongoing climate change.
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In conclusion, the floods in Myanmar in 2015 caused by the tropical cyclone Komen,
resulted in high social and economic losses. The population, although adapted to regular interannual flood, was not prepared enough for this flood that reached levels of a 25 years return
period. More than half of the population of the country was affected, with thousands of houses
and farms destroyed. The international help was not enough for appropriate emergency response
activities. This is a good example of how floods can be disastrous in countries of South and
Southeast Asia, that share similar physical and socio-economical characteristics with Myanmar.
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