Indonesia Flood Crisis: Over 900 Dead as Starvation Threatens Remote Villages in Sumatra

Indonesia:

Devastating floods and landslides have claimed over 900 lives on Indonesia's Sumatra island, according to the country's disaster management agency on Saturday, with growing concerns that starvation could further increase the death toll.

A series of tropical storms and monsoonal downpours has battered Southeast and South Asia, causing landslides and flash floods from Sumatran rainforests to Sri Lankan highland plantations.

Natural disasters unfolding across Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam have resulted in more than 1,790 fatalities over the past week.

In Indonesia's Aceh and North Sumatra provinces, floodwaters have destroyed roads, buried homes in silt, and disrupted supply chains.

Aceh governor Muzakir Manaf reported that response teams continue searching for bodies in "waist-deep" mud.

However, starvation now poses one of the most severe threats to isolated and inaccessible villages.

"Many people need basic necessities. Many areas remain untouched in the remote areas of Aceh," he informed reporters.

"People are not dying from the flood, but from starvation. That's how it is."

Muzakir stated that entire villages in the rainforest-covered Aceh Tamiang region had been washed away.

"The Aceh Tamiang region is completely destroyed, from the top to the bottom, down to the roads and down to the sea.

"Many villages and sub-districts are now just names," he said.

Aceh Tamiang flood victim Fachrul Rozi shared that he had spent the past week crowded into an old shop building with fellow evacuees who had escaped the rising waters.

"We ate whatever was available, helping each other with the little supplies each resident had brought," he told AFP.

"We slept crammed together."

Aceh resident Munawar Liza Zainal expressed feeling "betrayed" by the Indonesian government, which has thus far resisted pressure to declare a national disaster.

"This is an extraordinary disaster that must be faced with extraordinary measures," he told AFP, reflecting frustrations voiced by other flood victims.

"If national disaster status is only declared later, what's the point?"

Declaring a national disaster would mobilize resources and facilitate coordination between government agencies in their response efforts.

Analysts suggest Indonesia might be reluctant to declare a disaster—and seek additional foreign aid—as it would indicate an inability to manage the situation independently.

This week, Indonesia's government maintained that it could handle the aftermath without external assistance.

Climate Calamity

The full extent of devastation is only now becoming apparent in other parts of Sumatra as swollen rivers recede and floodwaters subside.

AFP photos depicted mud-covered villagers retrieving silt-encrusted furniture from flooded homes in Aek Ngadol, North Sumatra.

Humanitarian organizations are concerned that the magnitude of this calamity could be unprecedented, even for a nation frequently affected by natural disasters.

Indonesia's death toll reached 908 on Saturday, according to the disaster management agency, with 410 individuals still missing.

Sri Lanka's fatality count increased on Friday to 607, as the government warned that new rainfall elevated the risk of additional landslides.

Thailand has reported 276 deaths and Malaysia two, while at least two people perished in Vietnam following landslides triggered by heavy rains.

Seasonal monsoon rains are characteristic of Southeast Asian life, irrigating rice fields and supporting the growth of other essential crops.

However, climate change is making this phenomenon more erratic, unpredictable, and deadly throughout the region.

Both environmentalists and Indonesia's government have suggested that logging and deforestation intensified the landslides and flooding in Sumatra.