Myanmar storm's death toll may top 10,000
Hundreds of thousands of people may be left homeless by Tropical Cyclone Nargis, which struck the Southeast Asian nation Saturday.
NEW DELHI - The government of Myanmar said today that the death toll from a weekend cyclone in the Southeast Asian nation could hit 10,000, with potentially hundreds of thousands of people left homeless, aid agencies reported.
The estimate of 10,000 killed was a sharp escalation from the previous official tally of 351 and was provided in a briefing by the Myanmar government to United Nations agencies, said Stephanie Bunker, the spokeswoman for the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. At least 3,000 people were reported missing from a single district.
Tropical Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, on Saturday with winds of up to 120 mph. Particularly hard hit was the fertile, low-lying Irrawaddy River delta, which empties into the Andaman Sea.
Telephone and Internet lines were down, making communication even more difficult in a country whose ruling military junta keeps a tight rein on contact with the outside world. Aid officials said it could be several days or even weeks before an accurate assessment of death and damage could be made.
Hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have been displaced by the disaster, with many residents in the mostly Buddhist nation taking shelter in temple pagodas, said Christine South, Asia-Pacific operations coordinator for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
South said by telephone from Geneva that her organization had dispatched five teams to survey the damage - two in the capital, Yangon (also known as Rangoon), and three in the Irrawaddy delta area.
The aid workers were distributing about 4,200 emergency kits with clothing, water purification tablets, tarpaulins and other necessities. The federation also had more relief teams standing by in the region, waiting for a go-ahead from the Myanmar government, South said.
Around the delta, "there have been surge tides, there may be mud flow, there may be potential of rain in coming days," she said. "This is the rice bowl of Myanmar, so we have to assess the impact on food production in the longer term."
In Yangon, there were reports of homes with their roofs blown off and windows shattered, and of roads blocked by fallen trees and other debris. Some power lines were down, and construction materials were scarce.
"People are having problems with drinking water," said Soe Myint, a Burmese political dissident based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, citing information from contacts in Yangon. "Prices of basic commodities have increased."
