Myanmar Cyclone: Kills Over 23,000; Mln Turn Homeless
‘Pakistan Times’ Monitoring Desk

YANGON (Myanmar): Hungry crowds of survivors stormed the few shops that opened in Myanmar's stricken Irrawaddy delta, where food and international aid has been scarce since a devastating cyclone killed more than 23,000 people, the U.N. said Wednesday.

Corpses floated in salty flood waters and witnesses said survivors tried desperately to reach dry ground on boats using blankets as sails. The U.N. said some 1 million people were homeless in the Southeast Asian country, also known as Burma.

"Basically the entire lower delta region is under water," said Richard Horsey, Bangkok-based spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid.

"Teams are talking about bodies floating around in the water," he said. This is "a major, major disaster we're dealing with."

"Visas are still a problem. It is not clear when it will be sorted out," according to the minutes of a meeting of the U.N. task force coordinating relief for Myanmar in Bangkok, Thailand on Wednesday.

It said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "will contact Myanmar" Wednesday to arrange a meeting with high-ranking officials on the issue.

State media in Myanmar said more than 23,000 people died when Cyclone Nargis blasted the country's western coast on Saturday and over 45,000 others were missing. But Horsey predicted the number of fatalities could rise "dramatically."

Local aid workers started distributing water purification tablets, mosquito nets, plastic sheeting and basic medical supplies. But heavily flooded areas were accessible only by boat, with helicopters unable to deliver relief supplies there, Horsey said.

A few shops opened Wednesday in the delta but were quickly stormed by people, said Paul Risley, a spokesman for the U.N. World Food Program in Bangkok, quoting his agency's workers in the area.

"Fist fights are breaking out," he said.

The U.N. World Food Program says as many as 1 million people may have been left homeless, with some villages nearly destroyed and vast rice-growing areas wiped out.The Irrawaddy delta is considered Myanmar's rice bowl.

The junta normally restricts the access of foreign officials and organizations to the country, and aid groups were struggling to deliver relief goods.

"Most urgent need is food and water," said Andrew Kirkwood, head of Save the Children in Yangon. "Many people are getting sick. The whole place is under salt water and there is nothing to drink. They can't use tablets to purify salt water," he said.

Save the Children distributed food, plastic sheeting, cooking utensils and chlorine tablets to 230,000 people in Yangon area. Trucks were sent to the delta on Wednesday, carrying rice, salt, sugar and tarpaulin.

A Yangon resident who returned home from the area said people are drinking coconut water because of lack of safe drinking water. He said many people were on boats using blankets as sails.

Local aid groups were distributing rice porridge, which people were collecting in dirty plastic shopping bags. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared getting into trouble with authorities for talking to a foreign news agency.

U.N. Aid Supplies

In Geneva, the United Nations said Myanmar has authorized an airplane to bring U.N. aid supplies to cyclone victims.

But permission is still pending for a U.N. coordination team to accompany the flight, which was set to take off Wednesday. U.N. spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said U.N. staff in Bangkok also were awaiting approval of their visas so they can go to Myanmar and assess damage.

Relief teams and aid material are waiting to deploy from Thailand, Singapore, Italy, France, Sweden, Britain, South Korea, Australia, Israel, U.S., Poland, Japan, according to minutes from a U.N. relief meeting in Geneva.

However, Myanmar has accepted aid from traditional friends China and Indonesia. A group from Malaysia also was granted visas, according to the minutes of the meeting.

The U.S. military started positioning people and equipment as it awaited word from Myanmar's government.

"When they accept, or if they accept — and we know what supplies they need — those planes will be there to transport those," Air Force spokeswoman Megan Orton said Wednesday morning at the Pentagon.

Many angry Yangon residents say they were given vague and incorrect information about the approaching storm and no instructions on how to cope when it struck.

Electricity was restored in a small portion of Yangon but most city residents, who rely on wells with electric pumps, had no water.

Vendors sold bottled water at more than double the normal price. Price of rice and cooking oil also skyrocketed.

Britain offered about $9.8 million to help the crisis, and the U.S. offered more than $3 million in aid. President Bush said Washington was prepared to use the U.S. Navy to help search for the dead and missing.

However, Myanmar which regularly accuses the United States of trying to subvert its rule, was unlikely to accept U.S. military presence in its territory.
The cyclone came a week before a key referendum on a proposed constitution backed by the junta.

State radio said Saturday's vote would be delayed until May 24 in 40 of 45 townships in the Yangon area and seven in the Irrawaddy delta. But it indicated the balloting would proceed in other areas as scheduled.

Recap

To recap an earlier report with details on the catastrophe in Myanmar – as was reported by ‘Pakistan Times’ [Daily Web Newspaper] in its edition on Wednesday, May 07, 2008 – Click Here;

http://www.pakistantimes.net/2008/05/07/top.htm
[Myanmar Cyclone: Death Toll Soars 23,000; 45,000 Missing]●