‘We are living on alert,’ says a local.

Some 104 people who live in the lowlands of Belin Township, Mon State, were evacuated on Tuesday to relief camps as water levels in the area rise following heavy rains.

The evacuees are from 23 families, and are now staying at the office of the National Unity Party, and three monasteries.

“The water level in the Belin River still has reached peak [warning] level, but it is still increasing. We are alerting all people in Belin town about the water levels rising,” Belin parliamentarian Dr. Khin Naing Oo told NMG.

According to Dr. Khin Naing Oo, the Belin River had reached 977 centimeters on Tuesday morning. The highest water level for the area has been more than one meter deep. The town has had more than eight centimeters of rain so far in July.

“The water level in the river has increased since yesterday—it increased a lot today,” Belin local Ko Min told NMG on Tuesday, noting that some wards were already flooded. “If the rain continues, the low, flat areas will quickly be full of water. We are living on alert.”

The government’s Department of Meteorology reported that the Belin River could reach peak level by Wednesday.

A combined rescue team of township administration authorities, firefighters, social welfare department workers are preparing for further evacuations, and deliveries of rice, noodles, cooking oil, salt, and drinking water to people in Belin’s more remote areas.

Local authorities closed a primary school near the Belin River and two primary schools near the Donthami River on Tuesday.

Belin flooded in 2018, causing nearly 13,000 people to evacuated to rescue camps. The township typically experiences some of the worst flooding in Mon State, with Kyaikhto, Thaton, Kyaikmayaw and Ye townships also facing annual floods.