A week of water that turned into a regional emergency
In southern Thailand, drone footage over Hat Yai shows streets carpeted with mud, cars piled into corners and rows of shopfronts gutted by water that only days ago reached first-floor windows. Behind those images is a stark human cost: at least 145 people have been killed across eight southern provinces, with more than three million people affected and entire neighbourhoods still without power.
Across the Malacca Strait, Indonesia’s Sumatra island is counting its own losses. Rains intensified by Tropical Cyclone Senyar triggered landslides and flash floods that tore through villages in North Sumatra, Aceh and West Sumatra, killing at least 164–174 people and leaving many others missing. With bridges washed away and roads cut, some communities remain reachable only by boat or helicopter. Floodwaters have submerged thousands of homes and damaged large areas of cropland and livestock, undermining local livelihoods for months to come.
Malaysia, too, is under strain. Floods have hit multiple states, forcing more than 20,000 people into relief centres at the peak and affecting up to ten states in Peninsular Malaysia. While the confirmed death toll is lower than in Thailand and Indonesia, authorities and humanitarian agencies are dealing with repeated evacuations, damage to schools and clinics, and the risk of disease outbreaks in crowded shelters.
Climate risk converges with infrastructure and governance gaps
These Southeast Asia floods in 2025 are part of a wider pattern: monsoon seasons made more volatile by warmer oceans and a growing likelihood of intense rainfall events. Yet the humanitarian impact is shaped as much by governance and infrastructure as by meteorology.
In rapidly growing urban areas such as Hat Yai, drainage and land-use planning have struggled to keep pace with development. Informal settlements along rivers and hillsides, where poorer households often settle, face disproportionate exposure to landslides and flash floods. On Sumatra, steep terrain and deforestation have amplified landslide risks, while limited road networks make it difficult to move heavy equipment into disaster zones quickly.
National disaster agencies in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia are experienced and relatively well-equipped by regional standards. They have deployed thousands of personnel, boats and aircraft; Thailand is even exploring the use of drones to reach isolated communities and assess damage more rapidly. But when multiple provinces and countries are hit simultaneously, response capacity stretches thin, and budgetary pressures become acute.
Food systems, fiscal space and ASEAN cooperation
Beyond the immediate human toll, the floods pose longer-term risks that are squarely within the SDG agenda. Disaster-monitoring organisations warn that damage to rice fields, palm-oil plantations and smallholder farms across the region could tighten food supplies and depress incomes for rural households already living close to the poverty line. Recovery will require not only rebuilding homes and roads, but also providing seeds, livestock, microfinance and social protection to keep families from sliding further into hardship.
The fiscal implications are significant. Many Southeast Asian economies are already managing higher interest costs and tighter budgets after years of pandemic and energy shocks. Large-scale reconstruction, often repeated after successive disasters, eats into fiscal space that might otherwise support education, health and long-term climate investments. Without access to affordable climate-risk finance—through contingent credit lines, regional insurance pools or innovative instruments—these countries will struggle to plan beyond the next emergency.
ASEAN’s disaster-response architecture, including the AHA Centre, is active in coordinating information and support, particularly between Peninsular Malaysia and southern Thailand. Yet the scale of this crisis raises questions about whether regional mechanisms have sufficient mandate, resources and pre-agreed financing to cope with increasingly frequent, multi-country events.
What senior officials, UN leaders and MDBs should watch next
For governments and multilateral institutions, this humanitarian crisis is also a governance opportunity. The immediate priority is obvious: life-saving assistance, restoration of basic services and support for national response plans in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. But three medium-term issues will determine whether Southeast Asia can break out of the cycle of flood, rebuild, repeat.
First, integrating climate-risk data into every stage of planning—from urban zoning to transport corridors and agricultural policy—will be essential. Second, scaling resilient infrastructure investment, including drainage, flood-defence systems and nature-based solutions such as mangrove restoration, can reduce the damage footprint of future storms. Third, regional and global partners will need to work with ASEAN to develop predictable, quickly accessible climate-risk finance that allows governments to act before disasters peak, not only after waters recede.
The Southeast Asia floods of 2025 are a reminder that the front line of climate risk is not a distant future. It is here, moving through the streets of Hat Yai, the hills of Sumatra and the relief centres of Kelantan—and it will keep returning unless resilience and finance catch up with the changing climate.
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