On 30 July, Cyclone Komen made landfall in Bangladesh, bringing strong winds and heavy rains to Myanmar and resulting in severe and widespread flooding that affected over 9 million people across 12 of the country’s 14 states and regions. This followed heaving flooding in some parts of the country over the previous month. According to the Emergency Operations Centre, 172 people were killed between June and October and over 1.7 million were temporarily displaced.
Some regions were particularly hard hit and MSF started emergency flood response activities in two states that had been declared natural disaster zones by the President: one in Rakhine State, where it already runs primary health care projects, and a second one in Sagaing Region, bordering India to the north. In Sagaing Region, an estimated 70,000 people were affected by the floods. With over 80 percent of rural areas under water and around 22,000 people displaced, Kalay was the most impacted township in the area.