Flooding in Indonesia last month
Large swathes of Asia have been hit by devastating floods over the past two weeks.
Across Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Sri Lanka the death toll has now topped 1,300. And millions of people have seen their homes destroyed and farmland ruined.
Collapsed bridges and blocked roads have made worse the suffering in Indonesia, making it more difficult for rescuers to get to people. Residents have described homes being swept away in a matter of minutes. And they say stocks of food and drinking water are running low.
In Aceh, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the floods are a traumatic reminder of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.
In Sri Lanka, the death toll is at least 366. But there are hundreds more missing and 148,000 people have been forced out of their homes. It is the worst disaster to hit the island since the tsunami, which killed about 31,000 people there.
The deadly floods come just weeks after global leaders met in Brazil for the international climate talks. They are another reminder of politicians’ inaction on climate breakdown
A cluster of tropical cyclones brought extremely heavy rain to the region. The storms were unusually large and unusually long lasting. Indonesian climate expert Erma Yulihastin said that 100mm of rain in a day is considered extreme, but parts of Sumatra saw more than twice that.
This is the kind of weather we can expect to see more of as the oceans and atmosphere heat up. Warmer air picks up more moisture from the ocean which it deposits on the land as rain. Storms also become more powerful as they draw energy from the warmer water.
Across Asia, these rains are falling in places that have people respond to their precarious lives by rising up against their governments.
Sri Lanka exploded in rebellion in 2022 that overthrew the dictatorship of the Rajapaksa family.
Many rejoiced when left winger Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the National People’s Power (NPP) alliance was elected president last year. But it has made concessions to neoliberalism, paving the way for more austerity and privatisation.
A statement by the Feminist Collective for Economic Justice in Sri Lanka said that the poorest and most marginalised people were the most impacted.
It said, “Workers living and working in and around the industrial waste canals are exposed to deteriorating water sanitation and severe hygiene risks. It is shocking that even in these extremely perilous conditions, workers are being forced to work.”
“The global debt burden mirrors the climate crisis and is disproportionately upon the feeble shoulders of poorer countries such as Sri Lanka. People are barely surviving the economic crisis and rising costs of living while more than 50 percent of households are heavily in debt.”
“The NPP government must renegotiate the conditions stipulated by the IMF and other lenders in the coming months. The government must choose to be on the side of its people and not side with its creditors as the nation struggles to emerge from this disaster.”
Indonesia has been one of the centres of the so-called Gen Z uprisings this year. People raged against state violence and austerity, especially a housing allowance system for MPs which awarded them nearly ten times the minimum wage.
Although centred on the capital Jakarta, anger at the Prabowo Subianto government spread to Aceh too.
Indonesia is exceptionally vulnerable to climate change. Neoliberal policies have also made it one of the world’s biggest contributors as it slashes forests and replaces them with palm oil plantations for export.
The Indonesian state is responding to the threat with infrastructure projects like sea walls. But it has also pushed deep cuts that have made people less able to cope.
Stopping climate breakdown would mean tackling the fossil fuel companies that put their megaprofits before the planet. It is also a fight against corruption, poverty and inequality.
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