Three simultaneous cyclones and an unusually intense monsoon have left a trail of destruction across southern Asia, extending from the South China Sea in the east to the Bay of Bengal in the west. Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand are all reeling from the effects. At least 1,600 people have perished and hundreds are still missing. Nearly 11m people have been affected and over a million displaced by continued flooding. Sri Lanka, which was still recovering from an economic collapse in 2022, has been particularly hard hit, with infrastructure and agriculture severely damaged. So has Indonesia, which accounts for nearly half the death toll. Cyclones such as the one that battered it are uncommon so close to the equator. That worsened the effects because locals had little experience of such extreme weather, according to the World Meteorological Organisation, a UN agency. ■