Across several Asian countries, the final months of 2025 were marked by some of the most destructive flooding the region has seen in decades. What began as an unusually intense monsoon season quickly escalated into a cascade of disasters, as back-to-back storms, saturated soils, and overflowing rivers combined to overwhelm communities from Indonesia to Sri Lanka and claim some 1,200 lives.
In Indonesia’s Sumatra region, whole villages were swept away by fast-moving floodwaters and landslides. Casualty numbers climbed into the hundreds, with many still missing and entire districts cut off as roads and bridges collapsed.
This image, acquired by one of the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites on 29 November 2025, shows extensive inundation across Aceh province, with towns such as Lhoksukon and Panton Labu surrounded by floodwaters. Sediment-laden plumes discharged into the sea along the northern coast indicate substantial river outflow, caused by the heavy upstream rainfall.
Other countries were seriously affected by the storms:
In Sri Lanka, torrential rains fueled by a passing cyclone triggered landslides and widespread inundation, prompting a national state of emergency as thousands of families were displaced.
Further north, Thailand, Malaysia, and parts of Vietnam endured repeated waves of flooding. Rivers spilled their banks, farmland vanished under water, and communities faced multiple evacuations in just a matter of weeks. In Vietnam, the floods even disrupted major agricultural harvests, adding economic strain to an already difficult season.
More info:
https://www.copernicus.eu/en/media/image-day-gallery/flooding-northern-sumatra-indonesia
