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In the mist-draped mountains of Sri Lanka’s tea country, rescuers were still plucking bodies from the reddish-brown mud on Tuesday after last week’s cyclone, the island’s worst natural disaster in decades.At least 465 people were killed, according to disaster officials, with another 366 missing.Sri Lanka’s Air Force has been combing the landslide-struck landscape, surveying the damage and ferrying food and other essential supplies to marooned residents.Though the rain has stopped, recovery has just begun.As the first journalist for foreign media to join a relief mission over the tea-growing region, AFP photographer Ishara Kodikara saw a swathe of the country destroyed after slips of soil flattened everything in their paths, including roads and the vehicles that were on them.The roof of some houses peaked through the mud, while the rest of the buildings were swallowed by the torrents of soil unleashed by Cyclone Ditwah.Jagged tears in the mountainsides revealed churned-up expanses of earth, with a few patches of the lush vegetation still clinging nearby in stark contrast. There was no sign of human life in the wrecked landscape.In the central Welimada area, now inaccessible to heavy vehicles, rescue workers pulled 11 bodies from the mud on Monday and appealed for help to search for dozens more.In some places, entire slopes have been sheared away, leaving ochre wounds slicing through the dense plantation greenery.- Swallowed by landslides -The full extent of the damage to tea plantations, factories and tea pickers is not yet clear, but local media reported the industry has been hard hit.What were once thick, unbroken canopies of tea are now wide channels of mud and debris.The main roadway has been swallowed by landslides, buried under heaps of mud, rock and uprooted vegetation. Only a few stray pieces of tarmac remain, suggesting where the road once was.The authorities say they have given top priority to reopening road access to the region, which is still supplied by air.Helicopters from neighbouring India and Pakistan have also been deployed to evacuate tourists and the sick.On the relief mission AFP attended on Tuesday, the VVIP Bell-412 aircraft had its seats removed to make room for food and other essential supplies.It ferried water and dry rations to stranded residents of Nuwara Eliya, in the heart of the tea country and 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of Colombo.Rescuers expect the death toll to rise as they regain access to areas that had been cut off from electricity and telephones for days.The disaster is already the deadliest since the Boxing Day earthquake and tsunami of 2004, which devastated Sri Lanka’s coastline.This time, the entire country has been affected either by landslides or floods.President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has declared a state of emergency, and appealed for international assistance.

Governments and aid groups in Indonesia and Sri Lanka worked Tuesday to rush aid to hundreds of thousands stranded by deadly flooding that has killed more than 1,300 people in four countries.Torrential monsoon season deluges paired with two separate tropical cyclones last week dumped heavy rain across Sri Lanka and parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra, southern Thailand and northern Malaysia.Climate change is producing more intense rain events because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, and warmer oceans can turbocharge storms.AFP analysis of US weather data showed several flood-hit regions across Asia experienced their highest November rainfall totals since 2012.The floodwaters have now largely receded, but the devastation means hundreds of thousands of people are living in shelters and struggling to secure clean water and food.In Indonesia’s Aceh, one of the worst-affected regions, people told AFP that anyone who could afford to was stockpiling.”Road access is mostly cut off in flood-affected areas,” 29-year-old Erna Mardhiah said as she joined a long queue at a petrol station in Banda Aceh.”People are worried about running out of fuel,” she added from the line she had been waiting in for two hours.The pressure has affected prices.”Most things are already sky-high… chillies alone are up to 300,000 rupiah ($18) per kilo, so that’s probably why people are panic-buying,” she said.On Monday, Indonesia’s government said it was sending 34,000 tons of rice and 6.8 million litres of cooking oil to the three worst-affected provinces, Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra.”There can be no delays,” Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman said.But Alfian, a resident in Banda Aceh, told AFP the government had been “very slow, especially in ensuring basic necessities”.- Food shortage risk -Even areas that were not directly affected were seeing shortages because of blocked transport links.In Dolok Sanggul in North Sumatra, one resident told AFP he had been lining up since Monday afternoon for fuel, and spent the night sleeping in his car.”When we were about to enter the gas station, the fuel ran out,” he said.Aid groups warned that local markets were running out of essential supplies and prices had tripled.”Communities across Aceh are at severe risk of food shortages and hunger if supply lines are not reestablished in the next seven days,” said charity group Islamic Relief, which has sent a shipment of 12 tonnes of food aboard an Indonesian navy vessel.By Tuesday afternoon, the toll across Sumatra had risen to 712, but the number of missing was also rising, with 500 people still listed.And 1.2 million people have been forced from their homes, the disaster agency said.Survivors have described terrifying waves of water that arrived without warning.In East Aceh, Zamzami said the floodwaters had been “unstoppable, like a tsunami wave”.”We can’t explain how big the water seemed, it was truly extraordinary,” said the 33-year-old, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.The weather system that inundated Indonesia also brought heavy rain to southern Thailand, where at least 176 people were killed.Across the border in Malaysia, two more people were killed.- Colombo floodwaters recede -A separate storm brought heavy rains across all of Sri Lanka, triggering flash floods and deadly landslides that killed at least 465 people.Another 366 remain missing, and an official in the central town of Welimada told local reporters he expected the toll to rise, as his staff dug through the mud looking for victims buried by landslides.President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has declared a state of emergency to deal with what he called the “most challenging natural disaster in our history”.Unlike his Indonesian counterpart, he has called for international aid.Sri Lanka’s air force, backed by counterparts from India and Pakistan, has been evacuating stranded residents and delivering food and other supplies.Some 1.7 million people were affected by the floods and landslides, officials said.In the capital Colombo, floodwaters were slowly subsiding on Tuesday. Rains have eased across the country, but landslide alerts remain in force across most of the hardest-hit central region, officials said.burs-sah/aj/ami

A man convicted of murder was publicly executed at a stadium in eastern Afghanistan, witnesses told AFP on Tuesday, a punishment a UN rights monitor called “inhumane”.The man is the 12th person publicly executed since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, according to an AFP tally.The man, identified as Mangal, was executed in front of a crowd in Khost, the Supreme Court said in a statement.Witnesses told AFP the man was shot three times by a relative of the victim, in a scene witnessed by thousands of people. He had been sentenced to “retaliatory punishment” for killing a man after his case was “examined very precisely and repeatedly”, the court said.”The families of the victims were offered amnesty and peace, but they refused,” it said.These executions could “prove to be positive” because “no one will dare to kill anyone in the future”, said Mujib Rahman Rahmani, a Khost resident at the stadium.Authorities had urged people to attend the execution in official notices shared widely on Monday.They said he was one of several attackers who opened fire on a house in January 2025, killing 10 people, including three women.The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, said Tuesday before the public execution that such acts were “inhumane, cruel, and an unusual punishment, contrary to international law.””They must stop,” he wrote on social media.- International outcry -Public executions were common during the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, with most of them carried out in sports stadiums.The previous execution — the 11th according to AFP’s tally — took place in October, when a man was put to death in Badghis in front of thousands of spectators, including Taliban officials.Before that, four men were put to death in three different provinces on the same day in April.Taliban authorities also continue to employ corporal punishment, mainly flogging, for offences including theft, adultery and alcohol consumption.All execution orders are signed by the Taliban’s reclusive supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, who lives in the movement’s heartland of Kandahar.Law and order are central to the Taliban’s ideology, which emerged from the chaos of a civil war following the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989.Rights groups such as Amnesty International have also denounced the Taliban government’s use of corporal and capital punishment.In its annual report published in April, Amnesty said Afghanistan was among the countries where death sentences were imposed after trials that “did not meet international fair trial standards”.

Governments and aid groups in Indonesia and Sri Lanka worked Tuesday to rush aid to hundreds of thousands stranded by deadly flooding that has killed 1,300 people in four countries.Torrential monsoon season deluges paired with two separate tropical cyclones last week dumped heavy rain across Sri Lanka and parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra, southern Thailand and northern Malaysia.Climate change is producing more intense rain events because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, and warmer oceans can turbocharge storms.AFP analysis of US weather data showed several flood-hit regions across Asia experienced their highest November rainfall totals since 2012.The floodwaters have now largely receded, but the devastation means hundreds of thousands of people are living in shelters and struggling to secure clean water and food.In Indonesia’s Aceh, one of the worst-affected regions, people told AFP that anyone who could afford to was stockpiling.”Road access is mostly cut off in flood-affected areas,” 29-year-old Erna Mardhiah said as she joined a long queue at a petrol station in Banda Aceh.”People are worried about running out of fuel,” she added from the line she had been waiting in for two hours.The pressure has affected prices.”Most things are already sky-high… chillies alone are up to 300,000 rupiah per kilo ($18), so that’s probably why people are panic-buying,” she said.On Monday, Indonesia’s government said it was sending 34,000 tons of rice and 6.8 million litres of cooking oil to the three worst-affected provinces, Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra.”There can be no delays,” Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman said.But Alfian, a resident in Banda Aceh, told AFP the government had been “very slow, especially in ensuring basic necessities”.- Food shortage risk -Even areas that were not directly affected were seeing shortages because of blocked transport links.In Dolok Sanggul in North Sumatra, one resident told AFP he had been lining up since Monday afternoon for fuel, and spent the night sleeping in his car.”When we were about to enter the gas station, the fuel ran out,” he said.Aid groups warned that local markets were running out of essential supplies and prices had tripled.”Communities across Aceh are at severe risk of food shortages and hunger if supply lines are not reestablished in the next seven days,” charity group Islamic Relief said.A shipment of 12 tonnes of food from the group aboard an Indonesian navy vessel was due to arrive in Aceh on Tuesday.By Tuesday afternoon, the toll across Sumatra had risen to 712, but the number of missing was also rising, with 500 people still listed.And 1.2 million people have been forced from their homes, the disaster agency added.Survivors have described terrifying waves of water that arrived without warning.In East Aceh, Zamzami said the floodwaters had been “unstoppable, like a tsunami wave”.”We can’t explain how big the water seemed, it was truly extraordinary,” said the 33-year-old, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.The weather system that inundated Indonesia also brought heavy rain to southern Thailand, where at least 176 people were killed.Across the border in Malaysia, two more people were killed.- Colombo floodwaters recede -A separate storm brought heavy rains across all of Sri Lanka, triggering flash floods and deadly landslides that killed at least 410 people.Another 336 remain missing, and an official in the central town of Welimada told local reporters he expected the toll to rise, as his staff dug through the mud looking for victims buried by landslides.President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has declared a state of emergency to deal with what he called the “most challenging natural disaster in our history”.Unlike his Indonesian counterpart, he has called for international aid.Sri Lanka’s air force, backed by counterparts from India and Pakistan, has been evacuating stranded residents and delivering food and other supplies.In the capital Colombo meanwhile, floodwaters were slowly subsiding on Tuesday.The speed with which water rose around the city surprised local residents used to seasonal flooding.”Every year we experience minor floods, but this is something else,” delivery driver Dinusha Sanjaya told AFP.Rains have eased across the country, but landslide alerts remain in force across most of the hardest-hit central region, officials said.burs-sah/lb/fox

Governments and aid groups in Indonesia and Sri Lanka worked Tuesday to rush aid to hundreds of thousands stranded by deadly flooding that has killed over 1,200 people in four countries.Torrential monsoon season deluges paired with two separate tropical cyclones last week dumped heavy rain across Sri Lanka and parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra, southern Thailand and northern Malaysia.Climate change is producing more intense rain events because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, and warmer oceans can turbocharge storms.The floodwaters have now largely receded, but the devastation means hundreds of thousands of people are living in shelters and struggling to secure clean water and food.In Indonesia’s Aceh, one of the worst-affected regions, residents told AFP that survivors who could afford to were stockpiling supplies.”Road access is mostly cut off in flood-affected areas,” 29-year-old Erna Mardhiah said as she joined a long queue at a petrol station in Banda Aceh.”People are worried about running out of fuel,” she added from the line she had been in for two hours.The pressure has caused skyrocketing prices.”Most things are already sky-high… chillies alone are up to 300,000 rupiah per kilo ($18), so that’s probably why people are panic-buying,” she said.On Monday, Indonesia’s government said it was sending 34,000 tons of rice and 6.8 million litres of cooking oil to the three worst-affected provinces, Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra.”There can be no delays,” Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman said.But Alfian, a resident in Banda Aceh, told AFP the government had been “very slow, especially in ensuring basic necessities”.- Food shortage risk -Aid groups said they were working to ship supplies to affected areas, warning that local markets were running out of essential supplies and prices had tripled already.”Communities across Aceh are at severe risk of food shortages and hunger if supply lines are not reestablished in the next seven days,” charity group Islamic Relief said.A shipment of 12 tonnes of food from the group aboard an Indonesian navy vessel was due to arrive in Aceh on Tuesday.At least 659 people were killed in the floods across Sumatra, and 475 are still listed as missing. A million people have evacuated from their homes, according to the disaster agency.Survivors have described terrifying waves of water that arrived without warning.In East Aceh, Zamzami said the floodwaters had been “unstoppable, like a tsunami wave”.”We can’t explain how big the water seemed, it was truly extraordinary,” said the 33-year-old, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.People in his village sheltered atop a local two-storey fish market to escape the deluge and were now trying to clean the mud and debris left behind while battling power and telecommunications outages.”It’s difficult for us (to get) clean water,” he told AFP on Monday.”There are children who are starting to get fevers, and there’s no medicine.”The weather system that inundated Indonesia also brought heavy rain to southern Thailand, where at least 176 people were killed.Across the border in Malaysia, two more people were killed.- Colombo floodwaters recede -A separate storm brought heavy rains across all of Sri Lanka, triggering flash floods and deadly landslides that killed at least 410 people.Another 336 remain missing, and an official in the central town of Welimada told local reporters he expected the toll to rise, as his staff dug through the mud looking for victims buried by landslides.President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has declared a state of emergency to deal with what he called the “most challenging natural disaster in our history”.Unlike his Indonesian counterpart, he has called for international aid.Sri Lanka’s air force, backed by counterparts from India and Pakistan, has been evacuating stranded residents and delivering food and other supplies.In the capital Colombo meanwhile, floodwaters were slowly subsiding on Tuesday.The speed with which waters rose around the city surprised local residents used to seasonal flooding.”Every year we experience minor floods, but this is something else,” delivery driver Dinusha Sanjaya told AFP.Rains have eased across the country, but landslide alerts remain in force across most of the hardest-hit central region, officials said.burs-sah/fox

India has ordered smartphone makers to pre-install a government-run cyber security app that cannot be removed, a move that has raised concerns about users’ privacy.The country has a massive 1.16 billion mobile phone users, according to government data from 2024, and authorities say the app will better protect them from fraud.Late on Monday, New Delhi gave manufacturers 90 days to comply with new rules saying the app “Sanchar Saathi” — meaning communication partner in Hindi — must be “pre-installed on all mobile handsets manufactured or imported for use in India”.The order, detailed in a press release, also asked phone makers to ensure the app was “readily visible and accessible to the end users at the time of first use or device setup and that its functionalities are not disabled or restricted”.The government said the app was designed to allow users to block and track lost or stolen phones.It also lets them identify and disconnect fake mobile subscriptions made in their name, among other functions.Government figures show the app has already helped trace more than 2.6 million phones. However, rights advocates and politicians have sounded the alarm over potentially serious consequences.Advocacy group Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) said Tuesday it was concerned about the new directive.The order “represents a sharp and deeply worrying expansion of executive control over personal digital devices”, it said in a statement on X.”The state is asking every smartphone user in India to accept an open ended, updatable surveillance capability on their primary personal device, and to do so without the basic guardrails that a constitutional democracy should insist on,” the IFF said.For devices that have already been manufactured and exist in the market across the country, the government mandated that “the manufacturer and importers of mobile handsets shall make an endeavour to push the App through software updates.”Cyber security analyst Nikhil Pahwa said the rules were “clearly” an invasion of privacy. “How do we know this app isn’t used to access files and messaging on our device, which is unencrypted on device? Or a future update won’t do that?” he said on X.”This is clearly an invasion of our privacy,” he added.Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s opponents in the Congress party demanded an immediate rollback of the order, calling the move unconstitutional.”Big Brother cannot watch us,” Congress politician KC Venugopal said on X.”A pre-loaded government app that cannot be uninstalled is a dystopian tool to monitor every Indian,” he added.”It is a means to watch over every movement, interaction and decision of each citizen.” In August, Russia issued a similar directive ordering manufacturers to include a new messaging platform called Max on all new phones and tablets, but rights advocates warned the app could be used as a powerful surveillance tool.

Governments and aid groups in Indonesia and Sri Lanka worked to rush aid Tuesday to hundreds of thousands stranded by deadly flooding that has killed around 1,200 people in four countries.Torrential monsoon season deluges paired with two separate tropical cyclones last week dumped heavy rain across all of Sri Lanka and parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra, southern Thailand and northern Malaysia.Climate change is producing more intense rain events because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, and warmer oceans can turbocharge storms.The floodwaters have now largely receded, but the devastation means hundreds of thousands of people are now living in shelters and struggling to secure clean water and food.In Indonesia’s Aceh, one of the worst-affected regions, residents told AFP that survivors who could afford to were stockpiling supplies.”Road access is mostly cut off in flood-affected areas,” 29-year-old Erna Mardhiah said as she joined a long queue at a petrol station in Banda Aceh.”People are worried about running out of fuel,” she added from the line she had been in for two hours.The pressure has caused skyrocketing prices.”Most things are already sky-high… chillies alone are up to 300,000 rupiah per kilo ($18), so that’s probably why people are panic-buying,” she said.On Monday, Indonesia’s government said it was sending 34,000 tons of rice and 6.8 million litres of cooking oil to the three worst-affected provinces, Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra.”There can be no delays,” Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman said.- Food shortage risk -Aid groups said they were working to ship supplies to affected areas, warning that local markets were running out of essential supplies and prices had tripled already.”Communities across Aceh are at severe risk of food shortages and hunger if supply lines are not reestablished in the next seven days,” charity group Islamic Relief said.A shipment of 12 tonnes of food from the group aboard an Indonesian navy vessel was due to arrive in Aceh on Tuesday.At least 631 people were killed in the floods across Sumatra, and 472 are still listed as missing. A million people have evacuated from their homes, according to the disaster agency.Survivors have described terrifying waves of water that arrived without warning.In East Aceh, Zamzami said the floodwaters had been “unstoppable, like a tsunami wave.””We can’t explain how big the water seemed, it was truly extraordinary,” said the 33-year-old, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.People in his village sheltered atop a local two-storey fish market to escape the deluge and were now trying to clean the mud and debris left behind while battling power and telecommunications outages.”It’s difficult for us (to get) clean water,” he told AFP on Monday.”There are children who are starting to get fevers, and there’s no medicine.”The weather system that inundated Indonesia also brought heavy rain to southern Thailand, where at least 176 people were killed.Across the border in Malaysia, two more people were killed.- Colombo floodwaters recede -A separate storm brought heavy rains across all of Sri Lanka, triggering flash floods and deadly landslides that killed at least 390 people.Another 352 remain missing, and some of the worst-hit areas in the country’s centre are still difficult to reach.President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has declared a state of emergency to deal with what he called the “most challenging natural disaster in our history”.Unlike his Indonesian counterpart, he has called for international aid.Sri Lanka’s air force, backed by counterparts from India and Pakistan, has been evacuating stranded residents and delivering food and other supplies.In the mountainous Welimada region, security forces on Monday recovered the bodies of 11 residents buried by mudslides, a local official said.In the capital Colombo meanwhile, floodwaters were slowly subsiding on Tuesday.The speed with which waters rose around the city surprised local residents used to seasonal flooding.”Every year we experience minor floods, but this is something else,” delivery driver Dinusha Sanjaya told AFP.”It is not just the amount of water, but how quickly everything went under.”Rains have eased across the country, but landslide alerts remain in force across most of the hardest-hit central region, officials said.burs-sah/mtp

The toll in deadly flooding and landslides across parts of Asia climbed past 1,160 on Monday as hardest-hit Sri Lanka and Indonesia deployed military personnel to help survivors.Separate weather systems brought torrential, extended rainfall to the island of Sri Lanka and large parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra, southern Thailand and northern Malaysia last week.Much of the region is currently in its monsoon season but climate change is producing more extreme rain events and turbocharging storms.The World Health Organization said it was deploying rapid response teams and critical supplies to the region.The UN agency’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva that it was “another reminder of how climate change is driving more frequent and more extreme weather events, with disastrous effects”.The relentless rains left residents clinging to rooftops awaiting rescue by boat or helicopter, and cut entire villages off from assistance.Arriving in North Sumatra on Monday, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said “the worst has passed, hopefully”.The government’s “priority now is how to immediately send the necessary aid”, with particular focus on several cut-off areas, he added.Prabowo is under increasing pressure to declare a national emergency in response to flooding and landslides that have killed at least 593 people, with nearly 470 still missing.Unlike his Sri Lankan counterpart, Prabowo has also avoided publicly calling for international assistance.The toll is the deadliest in a natural disaster in Indonesia since a massive 2018 earthquake and subsequent tsunami killed more than 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.In North Aceh, 28-year-old Misbahul Munir described walking through water that reached his neck to get back to his parents.”Everything in the house was destroyed because it was submerged,” he told AFP.”I have only the clothes I am wearing,” he said in tears.”In other places, there were a lot of people who died. We are grateful that we are healthy.”- ‘Everything went under’ -In Sri Lanka, the government called for international aid and used military helicopters to reach people stranded by flooding and landslides triggered by Cyclone Ditwah.At least 390 people have been killed, Sri Lankan officials said on Monday, with another 352 still missing.Floodwaters in the capital Colombo peaked overnight.Now that the rain has stopped, there were hopes that waters would begin receding. Some shops and offices have reopened.The floodwaters came as a surprise to some around Colombo.”Every year we experience minor floods, but this is something else,” delivery driver Dinusha Sanjaya, 37, told AFP.”It is not just the amount of water, but how quickly everything went under.”Officials said the extent of the damage in the worst-affected central region was only just being revealed as relief workers cleared roads blocked by fallen trees and mudslides.President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has declared a state of emergency to deal with what he called the “most challenging natural disaster in our history”.The Sri Lankan president received a phone call from India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday to assure him of New Delhi’s continued support for relief and recovery efforts, Indian officials said.The losses and damage are the worst in Sri Lanka since the devastating 2004 tsunami that killed around 31,000 people there and left more than a million homeless.- Anger in Thailand -By Sunday afternoon, rain had subsided across Sri Lanka but low-lying areas of the capital were flooded and authorities were bracing for a major relief operation.Military helicopters have been deployed to airlift stranded residents and to deliver food. One crashed just north of Colombo on Sunday, killing the pilot.The annual monsoon season often brings heavy rain, triggering landslides and flash floods.But the flooding that hit Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia was also exacerbated by a rare tropical storm that dumped heavy rain on Sumatra island in particular.The waves of rain caused flooding that killed at least 176 people in southern Thailand, authorities said Monday, one of the deadliest flood incidents in the country in a decade.The government has rolled out relief measures, but there has been growing public criticism of the flood response, and two local officials have been suspended over their alleged failures.Across the border in Malaysia, where heavy rains also inundated large stretches of land in Perlis state, two people were killed.burs-sah-abh/aj/ksb

The toll in deadly flooding and landslides across parts of Asia climbed past 1,100 on Monday as hardest-hit Sri Lanka and Indonesia deployed military personnel to help survivors.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.Much of the region is currently in its monsoon season but climate change is producing more extreme rain events and turbocharging storms.The relentless rains left residents clinging to rooftops awaiting rescue by boat or helicopter, and cut entire villages off from assistance.Arriving in North Sumatra on Monday, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said “the worst has passed, hopefully”.The government’s “priority now is how to immediately send the necessary aid”, with particular focus on several cut-off areas, he added.Prabowo is under increasing pressure to declare a national emergency in response to flooding and landslides that have killed at least 593 people, with nearly 470 still missing.Unlike his Sri Lankan counterpart, Prabowo has also avoided publicly calling for international assistance.The toll is the deadliest in a natural disaster in Indonesia since a massive 2018 earthquake and subsequent tsunami killed more than 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.In North Aceh, 28-year-old Misbahul Munir described walking through water that reached his neck to get back to his parents.”Everything in the house was destroyed because it was submerged,” he told AFP.”I have only the clothes I am wearing,” he said in tears.”In other places, there were a lot of people who died. We are grateful that we are healthy.”- ‘Everything went under’ -In Sri Lanka, the government called for international aid and used military helicopters to reach people stranded by flooding and landslides triggered by Cyclone Ditwah.At least 355 people have been killed, Sri Lankan officials said on Monday, with another 366 still missing.Floodwaters in the capital Colombo peaked overnight.Now that the rain has stopped, there were hopes that waters would begin receding. Some shops and offices have reopened.The floodwaters came as a surprise to some around Colombo.”Every year we experience minor floods, but this is something else,” delivery driver Dinusha Sanjaya, 37, told AFP.”It is not just the amount of water, but how quickly everything went under.”Officials said the extent of the damage in the worst-affected central region was only just being revealed as relief workers cleared roads blocked by fallen trees and mudslides.President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who declared a state of emergency to deal with the disaster, called the flooding the “largest and most challenging natural disaster in our history.”The losses and damage are the worst in Sri Lanka since the devastating 2004 Asian tsunami that killed around 31,000 people there and left more than a million homeless.- Anger in Thailand -By Sunday afternoon, rain had subsided across Sri Lanka but low-lying areas of the capital were flooded and authorities were bracing for a major relief operation.Military helicopters have been deployed to airlift stranded residents and to deliver food. One crashed just north of Colombo on Sunday, killing the pilot.The annual monsoon season often brings heavy rain, triggering landslides and flash floods.But the flooding that hit Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia was also exacerbated by a rare tropical storm that dumped heavy rain on Sumatra island in particular.The waves of rain caused flooding that killed at least 176 people in southern Thailand, authorities said Monday, one of the deadliest flood incidents in the country in a decade.The government has rolled out relief measures, but there has been growing public criticism of the flood response, and two local officials have been suspended over their alleged failures.Across the border in Malaysia, where heavy rains also inundated large stretches of land in Perlis state, two people were killed.burs-sah-abh/ami/fox

A Bangladesh court sentenced Sheikh Rehana, sister of former premier Sheikh Hasina, to seven years in prison on Monday for corruption in a case involving the grabbing of lucrative plots in the capital.Rehana’s daughter Tulip Siddiq, who is a British lawmaker, was handed a two-year sentence in the same case, said Khan Mainul Hasan, prosecutor for the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).Hasina, who was given the death penalty for crimes against humanity last month, and 14 other government officials were condemned to five years of imprisonment.The 78-year-old former premier has sought refuge in India since her ouster last year following a student-led uprising, but Rehana’s whereabouts remain unknown.Siddiq, who resigned as British anti-corruption minister in January after being named in graft probes in Bangladesh, called the trial “flawed and farcical from the beginning to the end”.Hasan said the commission had details of Siddiq’s correspondence with Salahuddin Ahmed, the principal secretary to the then prime minister, exposing her role in the case.”Tulip insisted that her aunt Sheikh Hasina allocate plots for her mother and siblings, as she herself took three — one for her and two for her children,” Hasan said.”She called him (Ahmed), communicated via some encrypted apps, and even met him while she was in Dhaka.”Judge Rabiul Alam quoted verses from the Quran as he read out the judgement.”The court has full authority to try any Bangladeshi, whether the person is in the country or abroad,” he said.Hasina decried the latest verdict in a statement to AFP on Monday.”No country is free from corruption. But corruption needs to be investigated in a way that is not itself corrupt. The ACC has failed that test today,” she said.The interim government in Bangladesh would formally notify British authorities about Siddiq’s verdict, prosecutors said.Siddiq, 43, said she refused to be “distracted by the dirty politics of Bangladesh”.”The outcome of this kangaroo court is as predictable as it is unjustified,” she said in a statement.”I hope this so-called ‘verdict’ will be treated with the contempt it deserves.”Bangladesh has been in political turmoil since the end of Hasina’s rule, and violence has marred campaigning for elections slated for February 2026.The United Nations says up to 1,400 people were killed in crackdowns as Hasina tried to cling to power.