The death toll from floods across Asia has risen to 1230, as the hardest hit Sri Lanka and Indonesia’s Sumatra Island witnessed a sharp rise in fatalities after authorities deployed military personnel for relief and rescue operations.
The weather disturbances that brought heavy rainfall inundated much of Sri Lanka, while Indonesia and Malaysia also suffered significant losses amid heavy rainfall.
While much of Southeast Asia is currently in its monsoon season, climate change is altering patterns and producing extreme rainfall triggered by more intense storms. Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, who arrived in Sumatra on Monday, said, “The worst has passed, hopefully.”
The government’s “priority now is how to immediately send the necessary aid”, with particular focus on several cut-off areas, he added. The Indonesian president is under immense domestic pressure to declare a national emergency in response to flooding and landslides that have killed 659, with 475 still missing.
Meanwhile, in neighbouring Sri Lanka, flooding caused by heavy rainfall has killed 390, with another 352 missing in the aftermath of the weather-induced destruction, while 182 people have been killed in Thailand.
According to some preliminary estimates, the flooding in Asia since mid-November 2025 alone is thought to have caused $6 billion in economic losses. In 2025, flooding and landslides triggered by the heavy rainfall and cloudbursts killed thousands across India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and China.
The weather-induced destruction has amounted to billions of dollars’ worth of economic losses and forced the displacement of millions across these Asian countries.
