| Burma cyclone: victims killed by 12ft tidal wave |
| Tuesday, May 6, 2008 |
Most of the victims of the Burma cyclone were overwhelmed by a 12ft moving wall of water that bore down on their lowlying villages at the mouth of the Irrawaddy river delta.
In a rare press conference, members of the Burmese junta today gave the most detailed description to date of the disaster that killed at least 22,000 people at the weekend, and left a further 41,000 missing, according to Burmese state radio.
“More deaths were caused by the tidal wave than the storm itself,” said Maung Maung Swe, Burma's Minister for Relief and Resettlement, at a news conference in the rubble-strewn city of Rangoon, where food and water supplies are running low.
“The wave was up to 12ft (3.5 metres) high and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages. They did not have anywhere to flee.”
He confirmed that most of the town of Bogalay had been washed away. “Ninety-five percent of the houses in Bogalay were destroyed,” he said. “Many people were killed in a 12ft tidal wave."
Nasa satellite images showed virtually the entire coastal plain of Burma is now lying under water. With roads washed away and phone lines down, so far eyewitness reports of conditions in the Irrawaddy delta - home to nearly half Burma's 53 million population - have come mainly from aid workers who have flown over by helicopter.
They report corpses littered across the ruined rice paddy fields, and desperate survivors preparing to spend a fourth night without shelter or clean water.
The Christian relief organisation World Vision, one of the few international agencies allowed to work inside Burma, said its teams had flown over the most affected regions and witnessed horrific scenes on the ground.
“They saw the dead bodies from the helicopters, so it’s quite overwhelming,” said Kyi Minn, a World Vision adviser based in Rangoon.
“The impact of the disaster could be worse than the (2004 Asian) tsunami because it is compounded by the limited availability of resources on top of the transport constraints.”
Images from Burmese state television showed large trees and electricity poles sprawled across roads, and roofless houses ringed by water in the delta, once a lacework of paddy fields and canals regarded as Myanmar’s rice bowl. The salt water will have destroyed the rice fields for years to come.
Even in delta villages that managed to withstand the worst of the winds, food and water is already running low.
“There’s not much food,” one woman at a pineapple stall in Hlaing Tha Yar, a village one hour’s drive west of Rangoon.“The price of a cabbage is now 1,000 kyats instead of 250.”
Residents of Rangoon itself were queuing up for bottled water and there was still no electricity four days after the cyclone hit.
Prices of food, fuel and construction materials have skyrocketed, and most shops have sold out of candles and batteries. An egg costs three times what it did on Friday.
“Generators are selling very well under the generals,” said one man waiting outside a shop.
Army-controlled media have made much of the military’s response, showing footage of soldiers manhandling tree trunks or top generals climbing into helicopters or greeting homeless storm victims in Buddhist temples.
Residents tell a different story, saying that it is local people and Buddhist monks who have used makeshift tools to clear fallen trees and debris, and to start rebuilding shelters.
Frustration is growing among aid agencies that their trained staff are being prevented from entering Burma to help with the relief effort.
In Geneva, the United Nations said it had a disaster-assessment team in neighbouring Thailand awaiting entry visas.
The Burmese Government underlined that foreign relief experts would not be allowed in automatically. “For expert teams from overseas to come here, they have to negotiate with the foreign ministry and our senior authorities,” Maung Maung Swe said.
Relief officials warned that delays could be fatal, with fears mounting about the spread of disease, on top of the logistical problems of getting aid to many regions that are both remote and densely populated.
“Getting it out to the affected populations will be a major challenge, given that there is widespread flooding,” said Richard Horsey, a spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Bangkok.
“The urgent need is for shelter and for water. Without clean drinking water, the risk of disease spreading is the most serious concern."
Other problems await the aid that does get through. A Thai military transport plane that flew in to Rangoon with nine tonnes of food and medicines had to be unloaded by hand because there were no fork-lift trucks, a Reuters cameraman on the plane said.
Myanmar’s pro-democracy opposition urged the ruling junta to provide meaningful help to those in need and said it was “extremely unacceptable” for them to go ahead with holding a nationwide referendum on Saturday on a new constitution.
“We haven’t seen effective assistance to storm victims, even though the authorities have declared (regions) as disaster zones,” the National League for Democracy said.
At its news conference today, Information Minister Kyaw Hsan asked for patience, saying that the junta is “doing its best” to help. He admitted the authorities were struggling to cope.
“The task is very wide and extensive and the government needs the cooperation of the people and well-wishers from at home and abroad,” said Kyaw Hsan.
“We will not hide anything. Please ask the people not to be duped by rumours or fabrication.” He added that 5 billion kyats ($4.5 million) had been set aside in disaster aid.
Meanwhile a row was brewing after Indian meteorologists said they had given neighbouring Burma 48 hours warning before the cyclone hit.
“Forty-eight hours before (tropical cyclone) Nargis struck, we indicated its point of crossing (landfall), its severity and all related issues to Myanmarese agencies,” said B.P. Yadav, a spokesman for the Indian Meteorological Department.
Laura Bush, the US first lady who speaks on Burma welfare issues, has accused the junta of failing to pass on the warning of the impending storm, or to make preparations to help its citizens to weather the cyclone. Both she and President Bush have urged the junta to accept specialised rescue teams from the US to help with disaster relief, but so far the Burmese authorities have refused.
Factfile: deaths in natural disaster
1,500 dead in the southern United States in Hurricane Katrina in August 2005
4,400 dead in Bangladesh in Cyclone Sidr last November, the most recent violent storm to hit South-east Asia
10,000 dead in east Indian state of Orissa in cyclone in October 1999. The winds were accompanied by a 26ft storm surge. Many died of starvation and disease as rescuers failed to reach them in time with aid
50,000 feared dead in Cyclone Nargis in Burma in May 2008
75,000 dead in the Kashmir earthquake of October 2005. Most of the dead were crushed in their homes and schools when the tremors struck without warning
138,000 dead in Chittagong region of Bangladesh in cyclone in April 1991. The 20ft storm surge brought massive flooding that left 10 million homeless
225,000 dead in 11 countries in the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004. 31,229 were confirmed dead in Sri Lanka and 131,028 in Indonesia, mostly in Aceh province on the island of Sumatra. The official death toll in Burma was 61, although witnesses put it closer to 600.
Source: Agencies |
posted by moderator  Londen time 9:58 PM |
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