| Burma: 15,000 dead, up to a million homeless |
| Tuesday, May 6, 2008 |
Rangoon, Burma (CNN) -- The Burmese regime said Tuesday that at least 15,000 people were killed and the U.N. estimates up to a million people could be homeless after the catastrophic cyclone that has battered the country.
The country's state-run MRTV reported Tuesday that more than 10,000 people were killed in Myanmar's Irrawady Delta region alone and 59 in the Yangon division. It said another 3,000 were missing and that the death toll was expected to rise.
China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported a death toll of more than 15,000, citing official sources. More than 10,000 were killed in the township of Bogalay alone, according to Xinhua.
Even using the lower figures, the cyclone is the deadliest natural disaster to hit Myanmar in recent history, according to figures compiled by a U.N.-funded disaster database. The toll eclipses that of a 1926 storm that killed about 2,700 people, according to the database.
Maung Maung Swe, Myanmar's social welfare minister, told reporters Tuesday that 95 percent of the homes in Bogalay -- a city of 190,000 -- had been destroyed, AFP reported.
"Ninety-five percent of the houses in Bogalay were destroyed," he said, adding that most of the damage was caused by the 3.6 meter storm surge that accompanied the cyclone.
"Many people were killed in a 12-foot tidal wave," he said.
Bogalay sits in the heart of the Irrawaddy delta, which suffered the brunt of the storm's fury.
The U.N. World Food Program (WFP), which was preparing to fly in food supplies, offered a grim assessment of the destruction: up to a million people possibly homeless, some villages almost totally destroyed and vast rice-growing areas wiped out, The Associated Press reported.
"We hope to fly in more assistance within the next 48 hours," WFP spokesman Paul Risley said in Bangkok. "The challenge will be getting to the affected areas with road blockages everywhere."
Based on a satellite map made available by the U.N., the storm's damage was concentrated over about a 30,000 square-kilometer area along the Andaman Sea and Gulf of Martaban coastlines -- less than five percent of the country.
Kyi Minn, of the international aid group World Vision, told CNN that the situation was bleak.
"It could be worse than [the] tsunami," Minn said, comparing the cyclone's impact on Myanmar to the damage caused following the tsunami that struck the region in late 2004. The tsunami was triggered by a a massive earthquake off the coast of Indonesia and killed more than 150,000 across the region.
Minn said clean drinking water, food, medicine and shelter were all at a premium.
Tropical Cyclone Nargis pummeled Yangon for more than 10 hours from Friday night into Saturday, with 20 inches of rain and winds above 240 k/hr.
While Myanmar's ruling military junta has been accused by U.S. first lady Laura Bush of not warning the public about the approaching cyclone, witnesses say state media did report the storm -- it just came too late.
"We did get a warning, but it seems the military warned at a late stage," an Australian witness in Yangon told CNN, adding there was no time for people to evacuate or buy emergency supplies.
She also said that perhaps "a lot of Burmese didn't take it as seriously as they could have."
MRTV disputed media accounts of insufficient warnings ahead of the storm.
"Timely weather reports were announced and aired" on TV and radio two to three days in advance to keep people "safe and secure," an MRTV anchor reported.
Video from the scene showed residents in some areas hacking their way through downed trees and trudging through knee-deep, swirling brown water. Thousands of tropical trees had been ripped up and thrown down, some into roadways.
Terje Skavdal, of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs, called it a "major crisis."
"It is a major undertaking to get it right for the government," Skavdal told CNN in an interview from Bangkok, Thailand. "There is a major job ahead of us."
As the international community prepared a response, survivors faced the chaos the disaster caused.
Most telephone and cell phone service was down in Yangon, a city of about 6.5 million people, according to CNN Correspondent Dan Rivers, who was in town, but has since moved into the countryside.
In some places, the price of fuel had quadrupled to $10 a gallon in the wake of the storm, he said. Even with that price lines for gas stretched around the block and some were turning to the black market.
The price of eggs had doubled, the main water supply had been cut in many areas and power lines were down, Rivers said.
"No food. No water," an exasperated man told him. "So you have to find everything."
River said the damage in Myanmar's southern countryside was extensive but did not blanket the entire area.
Residents of one small community told Rivers that the army had been through to clear the main road but had not helped with recovery efforts.
The U.N. said International aid organizations were meeting to determine how best to help the thousands of people who had been affected by the storm.
A U.N. humanitarian official told CNN a five-person disaster assistance coordination team had arrived in Bangkok, but they would not know until later on Tuesday when they could enter Myanmar.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it had released $190,000 to help with the aftermath of the storm.
The U.S. Embassy in Myanmar has issued a "disaster declaration" in the country and authorized the release of $250,000 for cyclone relief efforts, Deputy State
Department spokesman Tom Casey said. A disaster relief team was on standby, he said, but the Myanmar government had not given permission for the team to enter the country.
The State Department issued a travel warning Monday night, authorizing the departure of non-emergency U.S. personnel at the embassy and warning American citizens to "strongly consider" departing Myanmar.
Despite widespread damage, the junta said over the weekend that it plans to proceed with a historic referendum on the country's constitution on May 10, according to state-run media reports.
A critic of Myanmar's government said the referendum must be postponed.
"They would be very stupid to go ahead with it," said Khin Maung Win of Democratic Voice of Burma, a broadcast media group run by opposition expatriates. "Thousands of people are dying or missing. It is very difficult to get around or get food and water. How can people vote?"
Myanmar was traditionally known as Burma.
The storm hit about a week ahead of the constitutional referendum -- referred to in the state-run media as the fourth step of a "seven-step road map to democracy."
The government has said elections will be held in 2010 to choose a representative government to replace the military junta.
Myanmar last held multi-party elections in 1990, when Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy handily won. The military junta ignored the results.
The regime has come under intense international pressure, especially after using force last year to suppress a pro-democracy movement.
*CNN |
posted by moderator  Londen time 10:51 AM |
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