In worst-hit Vietnam, the fatalities rose to 197, with nine confirmed dead in northern Thailand -- where one district is suffering its worst floods in 80 years.
Yagi brought a colossal deluge of rain that has inundated a swathe of northern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, triggering deadly landslides and widespread river flooding.
One farmer on the edge of Hanoi told AFP his entire 1,800 square metre peach blossom plantation was submerged, destroying all 400 of his trees.
"It will be so hard for me to recover from this loss -- I think I will lose up to $40,000 this season," said the farmer, who gave his name only as Tu.
"I really don't know what to do now, I'm just waiting for the water to recede."
The United Nations children's agency (UNICEF) said the typhoon had damaged more than 140,000 homes across 26 provinces in Vietnam.
- Communications cut off -
The high waters have devastated more than 250,000 hectares of crops and huge numbers of livestock, Vietnam's agriculture ministry said, with farmland around Hanoi hit hard.
Commuters in parts of the Vietnamese capital trudged to work through shin-deep brown floodwaters, though officials said river levels in the city are slowly falling after hitting a 20-year high on Wednesday.
Thousands have been forced to evacuate their homes, while others are struggling with power cuts.
In the deadliest single incident, a landslide in Lao Cai province annihilated an entire village of 37 houses, killing at least 42 people with 53 still unaccounted for.
Rescue teams pulled victims from the mud on Thursday, carrying them on stretchers to makeshift shelters where neighbours and relatives carefully washed the bodies in readiness for burial.
Survivors picked through the mud and wreckage to retrieve what family heirlooms and any possessions they could find.
Fifteen bodies have been recovered in Cao Bang province after a landslide on Monday pushed a bus, along with several cars and motorbikes, into a stream, state media said Thursday.
- Myanmar camps -
Myanmar's junta government has set up around 50 camps, anticipating that some 70,000 people could be affected by the floods, Lay Shwe Zin Oo, director of the social welfare, relief and resettlement ministry told AFP.
No casualty numbers or details have been given, but flooding in Myanmar is most severe around the junta's sprawling low-lying capital Naypyidaw.
The Global New Light of Myanmar, the state-run newspaper, said train services on the main line between Yangon and Mandalay were suspended because some sections were flooded.
The Mekong River Commission, the international body overseeing the crucial waterway, issued a flood warning on Thursday for the historic Laotian city of Luang Prabang.
The Mekong is expected to hit flood levels in the coming days in Luang Prabang, a UNESCO world heritage site, the commission said in a bulletin.
In Thailand the death toll has risen to nine, the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation said, including six killed in landslides in Chiang Mai province.
All flights have been suspended to the airport in Chiang Rai, some 145 kilometres (90 miles) northeast of Chiang Mai, aviation authorities said.
Newly-inaugurated Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra is set to visit the city on Friday.
Further north, Mae Sai district on the border with Myanmar is suffering its worst floods in 80 years, Suttipong Juljarern, a senior interior ministry official said in a statement.
While the military is sending boats, helicopters and other transport to help relief efforts, Buddhist temples, along with hotels and resorts, have opened their doors to accommodate almost 1,000 people flooded out of their homes.
Heavy monsoon rains lash Southeast Asia every year, but human-made climate change is causing more intense weather patterns that can make destructive floods more likely.
Climate change is causing typhoons to form closer to the coast, intensify faster and stay longer over land, according to a study published in July.
On boats or makeshift rafts, Myanmar residents flee severe floods
Taungoo, Myanmar (AFP) Sept 12, 2024 -
Carrying children on their backs or rowing the elderly on makeshift rafts through rising waters, thousands of Myanmar residents on Thursday fled severe flooding triggered by the deadly Typhoon Yagi.
Torrential rains have lashed conflict-wracked Myanmar in the wake of Typhoon Yagi that smashed into Vietnam at the weekend, inundating and causing deadly landslides across the region.
Floods have tipped rivers in Myanmar over their danger levels, cut communications and severed the railway between commercial hub Yangon and second city Mandalay.
In Taungoo town about 220 kilometres from Yangon, around 600 people were sheltering in a school building after fleeing their homes near the surging Sittaung river, local rescuers told AFP.
"It's worse this time. It's nothing like before," said one 76-year-old lady at the school who did not want to give her name.
"The water came halfway up our house."
"We left some stuff behind. I don't think about it anymore. We got here to save ourselves. We brought some pots and pans with us. The rest we left on the bar under the roof. I don't care if they survive the water or not."
Junta authorities had no "casualty or damage figures yet," Lay Shwe Zin Oo, director of social welfare, relief and resettlement ministry told AFP.
Authorities had opened "around 50 camps for some 70,000 flood victims" expected near the military-built capital Naypyidaw, Bago region, and in Kayah, Mon and Shan states, she said.
Emergency workers were also rowing boats through towns to evacuate stranded villagers.
- Sudden rise -
Some families piled their belongings and children into rescue boats where they sat under the cover of plastic sheets.
Others carried children on their backs or rowed elderly people through the water on makeshift rafts of tyres and wooden palettes.
"The water has risen so quickly," another lady at the school told AFP.
"Around 300 feet (90 metres) from the school it's at head-height," she said.
More than 3.3 million people in Myanmar are currently displaced according to the United Nations, with most of them forced to flee their homes by conflict unleashed by the military's 2021 coup.
More than 200 people have been killed in Vietnam, Laos and Thailand by floods and landslides unleashed by Typhoon Yagi.
The rainy season typically brings months of heavy downpours to the Southeast Asian country, but scientists say man-made climate change is making weather patterns more intense.
As the rain pelted down at the school near Taungoo, rescuers distributed dried noodles to a queue of people.
"I am going straight home the moment the water level drops," the 76-year-old lady said.
"When the water reaches up to my waist, I will go home."
lmg-ees-hla-rma/pdw/hmn
Boats carry terrified children to safety in Thai floods
Chiang Rai, Thailand (AFP) Sept 12, 2024 -
Rescuers in boats carried 60 schoolchildren to safety in the northern Thai city of Chiang Rai on Thursday after they were stranded by what residents said was the worst flood in decades.
The children, students at Samakkhi Witthayakhom School, spent a terrifying night trapped in a dormitory as the floodwaters, swollen by torrential rains from Typhoon Yagi, surged on Wednesday afternoon.
Millions of people across Southeast Asia are grappling with floods and landslides after Yagi barrelled through the region on Saturday, unleashing torrential rainfall that inundated northern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar.
One of the pupils trapped by the flood described the ordeal to AFP.
"I felt scared, because the flood rose so quickly that we didn't have time to prepare," the 18-year-old, who only wanted to be identified as Kraiwit, said.
"We were stuck there from yesterday afternoon at 3:00 pm until today. There were also nearby villagers who swam in to take shelter from the floodwaters, about 60 to 70 people."
Father Philip Pornchai, a Roman Catholic priest coordinating rescue efforts at the school, said the water had come up suddenly.
"We managed to evacuate around 800 children, but 60 were left behind," he told AFP.
Rescuers managed to retrieve the remaining children by Thursday as water levels continued to rise.
"I've been in Chiang Rai for nearly 10 years and I've never seen anything like this. Most people here can't remember water in the city like this," Pornchai said.
- 'Terrible, really terrible' -
The normally vibrant streets of central Chiang Rai lay submerged in waist-deep brown floodwater as the sun broke through the clouds on Thursday morning, with the city's intersections turned into canals.
Some residents waded through the water carrying buckets filled with food and other essentials collected from their homes.
Around the town, rescue trucks and boats traversed the water, searching for trapped residents.
A tearful woman in a wheelchair watched as her three meowing grey cats, rescued from her flooded home, were lowered to dry land as she sat in the back of a truck that had returned from a rescue mission.
Pyae Phyo Aung, originally from Myanmar, said it was the first time he had seen a flood in the 12 years he had been living in the city.
"When we packed our bags, the water level was around my thigh, but when I came to see my house in the evening, it was around my waist," he said.
"We never had floods here before, even though there was a lot of rain."
Shop owners had scrambled to protect their businesses with sandbags on Wednesday as the waters rose.
A man running a street food stand said he was terrified as the floodwaters arrived.
"Oh, it was terrible, really terrible," the man, who only wanted to be identified by his nickname Nat, told AFP.
"I had to close my shop. My fridge and my car all got flooded."
"I have been living here since my birth 47 years ago, and I have never seen a flood like this."
Local authorities are warning that more rain is expected in the coming days, complicating rescue efforts and further threatening homes in lower-lying areas.
"We're doing all we can," Father Pornchai said, "but this is going to take time."
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