ReliefWeb

Regional Summary (Week 15)

1. Scattered rain showers has been observed in the equatorial, southern ASEAN region, the Philippines, and some portions of the Mekong sub-region. However, smoke haze continued to be observed in the northern Mekong sub-region, specifically in northern Thailand, northern Lao PDR, and eastern Myanmar. Transboundary Smoke Haze Alert Level 3 is still raised over the northern Mekong sub-region.

2. Seismically, the region was active with 16 recorded earthquakes of magnitude 5.0 and above. All of these happened across Indonesia. The strongest earthquake is a M6.8, with it’s epicentre near Banggai Islands in Central Sulawesi. This prompted authorities to raise a tsunami alert. Residents surrounding the area evacuated to higher grounds. Fortunately, not much impact resulted from the strong quake. Just September last year, a M6.8 earthquake hit Palu in the other side of Central Sulawesi, resulting to major damages.

3. The ASEAN Specialised Meteorological Centre (ASMC) expects continuity of scattered rain showers in most of the region; with the exemption of the northern Mekong sub-region, which is forecasted to experience a generally dry weather with hotspots and hazy conditions.

4. The reported disasters were within the coping capacity of the respective member states.