Nargis formed into a tropical cyclone on April 27, 2008, in the central Bay of Bengal about 360 miles off of the southeast coast of India. On May 1st, it was clear the category one tropical storm was veering in a north-northeast direction heading for Myanmar. Unfortunately for the Burmese people, its government said little about the impending danger. It slammed into Myanmar’s Irrawaddy Delta, once the rice basket of the world, on May 3rd as a category three cyclone packing winds of over 120 miles an hour or 190 km an hour.
I have been to Burma and it is a beautiful country with a warm and friendly people governed by a corrupt military clique whose interests are limited to their own pockets. There are two bridges that span the Irrawaddy. Two bridges over a river that is about 1350 miles or 2170 km long. Two bridges to connect a country across a river that dissects the country in two. One bridge was built by the British in 1934. During their tenure of 45 years, the generals have managed to build one more span just south of Mandalay.
I didn’t make it to the Irrawaddy Delta because it is not an easy place to travel. There are few roads and transport is primarily by boat. And so when the cyclone hit the Irrawaddy Delta the area became cut off from Yangon which is just up river. Reports are of over 22,000 dead, 95% of those in the low-lying delta where the cyclone made landfall. Located on the tip of the country’s western coast, the Irrawaddy delta is a low-lying region where as many as 6 million people live. An additional 6.5 million people live in Yangon, the country’s former capital, located on the edge of the delta. The mighty Irrawaddy River branches out into numerous tributaries to form the delta, which is also criss-crossed by canals and wetlands. Over 40,000 are still missing and over one million people have been left homeless. Without quick medical attention and supplies of fresh water, the likelihood of water bourne diseases will start taking an additional toll especially on the eldery and children. What is so galling is that this disaster should not have been as bad as it is turning out to be. It was a category three storm but with no advance warning system, the population was mercilessly left exposed.
First Lady Laura Bush took the unusual step of highlighting the slow response of the authorities in Myanmar first to alert the population of impending danger and now to assist the needy and the weary.
“The government is having as much trouble as anyone else in getting a full overview. Roads are not accessible and many small villages were hit and will take time to reach,” Terje Skavdal, regional head of the U.N. office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), told Reuters in Bangkok.
The movements of foreign aid workers are restricted by the military, which has ruled the former Burma for 46 years and is largely spurned by the international community due to its repressive policies. A new policy imposed on foreign aid agencies in 2006 requires travel permits and official escorts for field trips. It also tightened rules on the transport of supplies and materials.
“That is the existing situation for international staff. The way most agencies work is they use national staff who have more freedom to move,” Skavdal said “We will have a dialogue with the government to try to get access to the people affected.”
Myanmar is scheduled to vote a new constitution this Saturday May 10th. I hope the people of Burma will remember how their government failed them once again and as it has done repeatedly since 1962. As for me, I wonder how my friends Liwn-Liwn and Sandima are doing.