Myanmar residents flee deadly floods in boats and on makeshift rafts

Carrying children on their backs or rowing the elderly on makeshift rafts through rising waters on Thursday, tens of thousands of Myanmar residents fled severe flooding triggered by the deadly Typhoon Yagi.

Torrential rain has lashed conflict-racked Myanmar in the wake of Typhoon Yagi which smashed into Vietnam at the weekend, wrecking infrastructure and causing deadly landslides across the region.

Floods have tipped rivers in Myanmar over their danger levels, cut communications and displaced more than 53,000 people, authorities said.

Around 600 people were sheltering in a school building after fleeing their homes near the surging Sittaung river in Taungoo town, about 220 km from Yangon, local rescuers told AFP.

"It's worse this time. It's nothing like before," said one 76-year-old woman 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."

Myanmar's fire service said 17 bodies had been recovered from flooded villages in the Mandalay region since Wednesday.

Separately, a rescue team had recovered the body of one dead woman near the military-built capital Naypyidaw, one of its volunteers told AFP.

"The whole village was submerged and people had stayed on the roofs of their houses and in trees the whole day and night," he said, requesting anonymity in order to talk to the media.

Junta authorities had no "casualty or damage figures yet", Lay Shwe Zin Oo, director of social welfare, relief and resettlement ministry, told AFP earlier.

Authorities had opened "around 50 camps for some 70,000 flood victims" expected near Naypyidaw, Bago region, and in Kayah, Mon and Shan states, she said.

Emergency workers were also rowing boats through towns to evacuate stranded villagers.

Some families piled their belongings and children into rescue boats where they sat under plastic sheets.

• World