Overview
- Authorities report at least 1,500 deaths, including 836 in Indonesia, 479 in Sri Lanka, 185 in Thailand and 3 in Malaysia, with 861 people still missing.
- Sumatra is among the worst hit with 3.2 million people affected as floods and landslides destroyed roads and bridges, buried villages and left communities short of food and clean water.
- Sri Lanka’s disaster agency counts nearly 500 dead and more than 1.5 million affected, and President Anura Kumara Dissanayake called it the country’s most challenging natural disaster.
- Meteorologists note the rare formation of Cyclone Senyar in the Strait of Malacca near the equator and cite unusually warm sea temperatures as a driver of extreme rainfall, aligning with WMO and attribution findings.
- Environmental groups say decades of logging, mining and palm‑oil expansion in Sumatra—an estimated 4.4 million hectares of forest lost—heightened landslide and flood risks, while activists press for faster adaptation finance and legal accountability.