TAUNGOO, Myanmar — The head of Myanmar's military government on Saturday made a rare request for foreign aid to cope with deadly floods that have displaced hundreds of thousands of people who have already endured more than three years of conflict. Floods and landslides have killed almost 300 people in Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand in the wake of Typhoon Yagi, which dumped a colossal amount of rain when it hit the region last weekend. In Myanmar, more than 235,000 people have been forced from their homes by floods, the junta said on Friday, piling further misery on the Southeast Asian country where war has raged since the military retook power on Feb. 1, 2021. In Taungoo, about an hour south of the capital Naypyitaw, residents paddled makeshift rafts on floodwaters lapping around a Buddhist pagoda. Rescuers drove a speedboat through the waters, lifting sagging electricity lines and broken tree branches with a long pole. "I lost my rice, chickens and ducks," said farmer Naing Tun, who had brought his three cows to higher ground near Taungoo after floodwaters inundated his village. "I don't care about the other belongings. Nothing else is more important than the lives of people and animals," he told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Flee by any means The rains from Yagi sent people across Southeast Asia fleeing by any means necessary, including by elephant in Myanmar and jet ski in Thailand. "Officials from the government need to contact foreign countries to receive rescue and relief aid to be provided to the victims," junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said on Friday, according to the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper. "It is necessary to manage rescue, relief and rehabilitation measures as quickly as possible," he was quoted as saying. Myanmar's military has previously blocked or frustrated humanitarian assistance from abroad. Last year, it suspended travel authorizations for aid groups trying to reach around a million victims of powerful Cyclone Mocha that hit the west of the country. At the time, the United Nations slammed that decision as "unfathomable." AFP has contacted a spokesman for the UN in Myanmar for comment. After Cyclone Nargis killed at least 138,000 people in Myanmar in 2008, the then-junta was accused of blocking emergency aid and initially refusing to grant access to humanitarian workers and supplies. 'Terrible experience' The junta gave a death toll of 33 on Friday, while earlier in the day the country's fire department said rescuers had recovered 36 bodies. A military spokesman said it had lost contact with some areas of the country, and was investigating reports that dozens had been buried in landslides in a gold-mining area in central Mandalay region. Military trucks carried small rescue boats to flood-hit areas around the military-built Naypyitaw on Saturday, AFP reporters said. "Yesterday, we had only one meal," Naing Tun said from near Taungoo. "It is terrible to experience flooding because we cannot live our lives well when it happens." "It can be okay for people who have money. But for the people who have to work day to day for their meals, it is not okay at all," he added. More than 2.7 million people were already displaced in Myanmar by conflict triggered by the 2021 coup. In Vietnam on Saturday, authorities said 262 people were dead and 83 were still missing. Images from Laos' capital Vientiane, meanwhile, showed houses and buildings inundated by the Mekong River.