Cyclone Kills 4,000; Death Toll May Hit 10,000

Yangon (Rangoon), Myanmar
Associated Press

May 5, 2008

Almost 4,000 people were killed and nearly 3,000 others are unaccounted for after a devastating cyclone in Myanmar (Burma), a state radio station said Monday.

(See photos of the cyclone damage and watch video.)

Foreign Minister Nyan Win told foreign diplomats at a briefing that the death toll could reach 10,000, according to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was held behind closed doors.

Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit the Southeast Asian country early Saturday with winds of up to 120 miles an hour (193 kilometers an hour), leaving hundreds of thousands of people homeless.

The government had previously put the death toll countrywide at 351 before increasing it Monday to 3,939.

"Cyclone" is the name given to a hurricane when it occurs in the northern Indian Ocean or, as is the case with Cyclone Nargis, the Bay of Bengal (see map). (Get the basics on hurricanes/cyclones.)

Aid Declined?

The radio station broadcasting from the country's new capital, Naypyidaw, said that 2,879 more people are unaccounted for in a single town, Bogalay, in the country's low-lying Irrawaddy River Delta area, where the storm wreaked the most havoc.

"Reports are coming out of the delta coast, particularly the Irrawaddy region, that in some villages up to 95 percent of houses have been destroyed," said Matthew Cochrane at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies' Geneva headquarters.

The situation in the countryside remained unclear because of poor communications and roads left impassable by the storm.

"Widespread destruction is obviously making it more difficult to get aid to people who need it most," said Michael Annear, regional disaster-management coordinator for the federation.

In Washington, D.C., the U.S. State Department said the U.S. Embassy in Yangon had authorized an emergency contribution of $250,000 to help with relief efforts. But the State Department added that the Myanmar government initially had refused to allow a U.S. Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) into the country to assess damage.

"We have a DART team that is standing by and ready to go into Burma to help try to assess needs there," deputy spokesperson Tom Casey told reporters.

"As of this moment the Burmese government has not given them permission, however, to go into the country, so that is a barrier to us being able to move forward."

At a Monday meeting with foreign diplomats and representatives of United Nations and international aid agencies, Myanmar's foreign ministry officials said they welcomed international humanitarian assistance and urgently need roofing materials, plastic sheets and temporary tents, medicine, water-purifying tablets, blankets, and mosquito nets.

Myanmar Red Cross volunteers already were distributing some basic items, Cochrane said.

The UN World Food Programme has already positioned 500 tons of food in Yangon and plans to bring in more relief supplies, said Elisabeth Byrs, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

UN agencies were working with the Red Cross and other organizations to see how the UN can help those affected by the cyclone. UNICEF spokeswoman Véronique Taveau said the UN children's agency alone has five teams assessing the situation in the country.

Struggling for the Basics

The cyclone blew roofs off hospitals and schools and cut electricity in Myanmar's largest city, Yangon. Older citizens said they had never seen the city of some 6.5 million so devastated in their lifetimes.

With the city's already unstable electricity supply virtually nonfunctional, citizens lined up to buy candles—which have doubled in price—and water (lack of electricity-driven pumps has left most households dry). Some residents walked to the city's lakes to wash.

Hotels and richer families were using private generators but only sparingly, given the soaring price of fuel.

Many residents stayed away from their jobs, either because the workers could not find transportation or because they had to seek food and shelter for their families.

"Without my daily earning, just survival has become a big problem for us," said Tin Hla, who normally repairs umbrellas at a roadside stand.

With his home destroyed by the storm, Tin Hla said, he has had to place his family of five into one of the monasteries that have offered temporary shelter to those left homeless.

(Related video: "Monks 'Vanish' at Myanmar Monasteries" [October 11, 2007].)

His entire morning was taken up with looking for water and some food to buy, ending up with three eggs that cost double the normal price.

Referendum to Proceed, Despite Destruction

Despite the havoc wreaked by the cyclone across wide swaths of the country, the government indicated that a referendum on the country's draft constitution would proceed as planned on May 10.

"It's only a few days left before the coming referendum, and people are eager to cast their vote," the state-owned newspaper Myanma Ahlin said Monday.

At the meeting with diplomats, Relief Minister Maj. Gen. Maung Maung Swe is said to have stated that the vote could be postponed by "a few days" in the worst-affected areas. However, Myanmar's foreign minister interrupted to say the matter would be decided by the official referendum commission.

Pro-democracy groups in the country and many international critics have branded the proposed constitution as merely a tool for the military's continued grip on power.

Should the junta be seen as failing disaster victims, voters who already blame the regime for ruining the economy and crushing democracy could take out their frustrations at the ballot box.

Associated Press writers Alexander G. Higgins and Eliane Engeler in Geneva contributed to this report.