Typhoon Yagi: Myanmar makes rare request for aid — report

Myanmar's junta chief made a rare request on Saturday for foreign aid in the wake of Typhoon Yagi, according to a report by a local news agency cited in the Global New Light of Myanmar paper.

Deadly floods hit the country on Friday after the typhoon barreled across China, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. In Myanmar, the junta said more than 235,000 had been forced from their homes.

Overall, some 300 people have been killed since Typhoon Yagi made landfall in Asia last weekend, bringing an enormous amount of rain to several countries.

In an English-language report, the government-owned New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported Min Aung Hlaing visited the affected areas and "urged officials to continue rescue and relief measures as quickly as possible with full strength."

His instructions also included the appeal to Myanmar officials to "contact foreign countries to receive rescue and relief aid to be provided to the victims."

Military trucks carried small rescue boats to flood-hit areas around the military-built capital Naypyidaw on Saturday, according to AFP reporters on the scene.

State media said flooding in the area around the capital had caused landslides which had destroyed electricity towers, buildings, roads, bridges and houses.

Breaking taboo on humanitarian aid?

Myanmar's military has previously blocked or frustrated humanitarian assistance from abroad. 

Last year it suspended travel authorizations for aid groups trying to reach around a million victims of powerful Cyclone Mocha that hit the west of the country.

At the time the United Nations slammed that decision as "unfathomable."

More than 2.7 million people were already displaced in Myanmar by conflict triggered by the junta's 2021 coup.

km/dj (AFP, AP, Reuters)