Myanmar Cyclone Nargis

This is a village in Myanmar before (May 3, 2008) and after (May 7,2008) cyclone Nargis arrived. As you can see from the photo (click for larger) everything is gone and much of the land is underwater.

Recent news reports say clean drinking water is scarce and although it isn’t official, its now estimated that 60,000 are dead or missing.  On May 3, Cyclone Nargis swept across southern Myanmar, leaving more than 28,000 Burmese dead and 33,000 still missing as it washed away people along with their homes. It is suggested by the UN that these numbers will rise to 150,000 very soon if aid does not start flowing into Myanmar soon. Everything hinges on access. Only a quarter of the victims have received any help at all, triggering a race against time to reach more than a million critically short of food, water and other aid and stalked by hunger and disease.

As the Myanmar government’s continued refusal to allow more than a trickle of aid into the country, the real disaster is said to be coming.  With no experienced disaster relief workers, it  has upped the chance of disease wiping out more people than the cyclone and the tidal surge that followed it.

Emergency teams are starting to penetrate some of the areas worst hit by Nargis and they are finding villages where all the homes are destroyed and survivors who have had no clean water since May 2. The World Food Programme estimates that aid has reached only about one-quarter of the 1.5 to 2 million victims of the cyclone.

CARE International workers have been interviewing survivors and hearing about repeated stories of villages of 400 or so people where only three or four people survived.

Oxfam, which is probably the best equipped international agency to deal with the drinking water and sanitation problems which are posing the greatest health risks to the cyclone survivors, is not registered in Myanmar and has yet to receive permission to enter the country. Oxfam suggests 1.5 million face death if they do not get clean water and sanitation soon.

With all the delays the region is now at huge risk of diseases spreading, particularly dysentery and cholera. The World Health Organization says it is already seeing diarrhea and dengue fever and fears outbreaks of malaria and measles, which are both endemic in Myanmar.

To make matters worse, if at all possible, a Red Cross relief boat sank which carried supplies when it hit debris in the Irrawaddy Delta region.

Many countries are coming to Myanmar’s aid, with Australia’s most recent and generous $25 million in relief aid.

It takes hundreds of millions of dollars over a period that often stretches to two or three years to deal with a disaster on the scale Myanmar suffered.

Click Here to Support American Red Cross: Myanmar Cyclone Relief
May 11, 2008 | Filed Under support | Leave a Comment