Water-pocalyse in parts of Asia: Why are floods that claimed 900 lives so deadly?

Key Highlights

• Sri Lanka has made an appeal for international assistance as the death toll from heavy rains and floods triggered by Cyclone Ditwah have risen substantially.
• AFPIndonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia… What do these countries have in common?
• Currently, these five nations are struggling to keep afloat, quite literally, as a band of cyclones and extreme monsoonal weather has hit them. At last count, the death toll has risen to 900 with authorities racing against time to clear debris and find hundreds of missing people.
• Such is the severity of the situation that Sri Lanka has declared an emergency with the other countries calling in their military to help victims of devastating flooding. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS ADAs these nations grapple with the extreme weather and the devastation, we get you the latest from the ground. How did the flooding begin in these countries?Meteorologists say the current weather extremes in Southeast Asia could stem from the interaction of two active systems: Typhoon Koto in the Philippines and Cyclone Senyar forming in the Malacca Strait.
• As per the Indonesian meteorology agency, the formation of Senyar in the Strait of Malacca was “rare”.“Indonesia’s location near the equator theoretically makes it less prone to the formation or passage of tropical cyclones,” the agency’s Andri Ramdhani said.