What happens next is prominent world scale phlanthropists will get their names in print. The UN will pass the hat. Websites will be built. The Irawaddy valley will consume the rest. Pandemic is the threat; the dead are dea. The bad water has already started the problems. The Cadre in Beijing is off the hok for the moment, since global news can only handle one outrage at a time.
Myanmar Death Toll Climbs Higher
As Thousands Await Aid Shipments
Associated Press
May 11, 2008 10:07 a.m.
Myanmar's state television says the death toll in last week's cyclone has jumped by about 5,000 to 28,458, while the number of missing now stands at 33,416.
International aid groups, however, say the death toll could eventually top 100,000 as conditions worsen. Though aid has started to trickle in, almost all foreign relief workers have been barred entry into the isolated nation. The junta says it wants to hand out all donated supplies on its own.
Reuters
People stood in line to receive water in a village affected by Cyclone Nargis located near the Myanmar capital Yangon.
Further complicating aid deliveries, a cargo ship carrying relief supplies for more than 1,000 cyclone victims sunk early Sunday when it hit a submerged tree trunk. International Red Cross spokesman Michael Annear called the accident a big blow to the already slow relief work. The crew members, including four staff members from the Myanmar Red Cross, managed to get to safety.
The boat was carrying 100 bags of rice, drinking water, water purification tablets, and other goods. Some relief items were saved and will be transported by foot or bicycle to the nearest town to await onward shipment, it said. "This is a great loss for the Myanmar Red Cross and for the people who need aid so urgently," said Aung Kyaw Htut, the distribution team leader of the Myanmar Red Cross.
Meanwhile, a British aid group warned that up to 1.5 million people face death if they do not get clean water and sanitation soon.
"It's really crucial that people get access to clean water sources and sanitation to avoid unnecessary deaths and suffering," Oxfam regional chief Sarah Ireland said from Bangkok, Thailand. She said the death toll from the May 3 cyclone could go up to 100,000 -- a figure also suggested by other aid groups.
"There are all the factors for a public-health catastrophe which could multiply that death toll by up to 15 times," she said.
The United Nations said about two million people were severely affected when Cyclone Nargis slammed into the country's Irrawaddy delta and Yangon, the country's biggest city. The U.N. said 206,000 people were living in 218 ramshackle relief camps, including 150,000 in and around the town of Labutta.
Fishing boats along the coast helped ferry survivors to safety but diesel supplies were running low and rescuers feared time was running out for those stranded in remote delta villages.
"Some have been living on coconuts," said Maung U, a 36-year-old driver of a rescue boat in Labutta. "But even those are running out."
Yet the government has refused to let in most foreign experts who have experience in handling humanitarian disasters. It insists it is capable of distributing the aid being pledged by international donors.
Aid group World Vision said it has requested visas for 20 people and received approval for two, while the U.N. World Food Program had one approved out of the 16 it requested.
Still, the U.N. was making some progress in aid delivery. The junta released 38 tons of high-energy biscuits to the WFP which were confiscated on Friday.
"We're delighted and very encouraged by what is a very positive sign," said WFP spokesman Marcus Prior. He said a Thai Airways flight ferried 4.4 tons of high-energy biscuits for the WFP Sunday, and a second flight from Italy would bring 30 tons of supplies and equipment later.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said three of its planes delivered 14 tons of shelter materials, replenishing stocks already in the country before the cyclone. "Aid is getting through in increased amounts," it said in a statement.
But World Vision, which has a big presence in Myanmar, said relief material delivered so far is not enough.
"It is very obvious that of the thousands of people who have been helped there are tens of thousands who have not been reached," World Vision's Samson Jeyakumar said from Bangkok. He said its supplies were running out in Yangon.
Many survivors have been without help for more than a week after fleeing their inundated villages to take shelter in monasteries and schools in towns. The canals and flooded roads to higher ground are littered with the bloated bodies of humans and animals.
"What is critical at the moment is water sources," said Ms. Ireland of Oxfam. "We understand a lot of water sources are contaminated. Ponds are full of dead bodies. Something as basic as a bucket is in scarce supply. If people don't have water that is clean and safe, that is very difficult," she said.
"With floodwaters fouling water supplies and latrines overflowing with human waste, all the factors for an outbreak of cholera and shigella are in place," an Oxfam statement said. Stagnant waters can breed mosquitoes, raising fears of dengue and malaria.
However, another Oxfam official, Ian Woolverton, said although the aid group has warned of a possible 1.5 million deaths, that was a worst-case forecast -- and one that could be prevented.
At relief camps, long lines of people waited to collect rations of rice and oil. Where there were no camps, people clustered on roadsides hoping for handouts. "Help us!" was written in chalk on the side of one home.
Ko Zaw Min, 27, said not enough aid was reaching his community. Each family was given only about a pound of rice a day.
"I want to build my home where it used to stand, in the field over there," said the farmer, who lost his 9-year-old son and month-old baby in the disaster. "But I have nothing."
Debbie Stothard, head of the Southeast-Asian human-rights group ALTSEAN-Burma, said the ruling generals were manipulating aid and delivering it selectively, ignoring the needy. Myanmar is also known as Burma.
"Even in the Yangon area, which is reachable by the regime, people are complaining they are not getting aid. What they are getting is rotting rice," she said from Bangkok.
Myanmar's junta has also been criticized for holding a referendum on Saturday on a new constitution aimed at solidifying its hold on power. The referendum seeks public approval of a new constitution which guarantees 25% of parliamentary seats to the military, allows the president to hand over all power to the military in a state of emergency, and bans pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from public office -- elements critics say defy the junta's professed commitment to democracy. (See related article.)
Copyright © 2008 Associated Press
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