Myanmar Cyclone Kills 100,000

[trashtalkr]

The death toll from the cyclone that ravaged the Irrawaddy delta in Myanmar may exceed 100,000, the senior U.S. diplomat in the military-ruled country said Wednesday.

"The information we are receiving indicates over 100,000 deaths," the U.S. Charge D'Affaires in Yangon, Shari Villarosa, said on a conference call.

The U.S. figure is almost five times more than the 22,000 the Myanmar government has estimated.

The U.S. estimate is based on data from an international non-governmental organization, Villarosa said without naming the group. She called the situation in Myanmar "more and more horrendous."

Villarosa also said about 95 percent of the buildings in the delta region were destroyed when Cyclone Nargis battered the area late Friday into Saturday.

Based on the same data, 70,000 people are missing in the Irrawaddy Delta, which has a population of nearly six million people, Villarosa said. The official Myanmar government figure for the missing is 41,000.

Little aid has reached the area since Nargis hit, and on Wednesday crowds of hungry survivors stormed reopened shops in the devastated Irrawaddy delta.

The United Nations urged the military junta to grant visas to international relief workers amid estimates of one million homeless.

A United Nations official said nearly 2,000 square miles (5,000 square km) of the hard-hit delta are still underwater.

The delta, Myanmar's rice-growing heartland, has been devastated by Cyclone Nargis, threatening long-term food shortages for survivors, experts said.

"We can't delay on this -- this is a huge disaster and the longer (Myanmar) waits the worse it's going to become," International Rescue Committee spokesman Gregory Beck said.

The Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that five states hit hardest by Saturday's cyclone produce 65 percent of the country's rice, The Associated Press reported.

"There is likely going to be incredible shortages in the next 18 to 24 months," Sean Turnell, an economist specializing in Myanmar at Australia's Macquarie University told AP.

Holmes said 24 countries had pledged financial support, with a total of $30 million expected in aid.

Based on a satellite map made available by the U.N., the storm's damage was concentrated over about a 30,000-square-kilometer area along the Andaman Sea and Gulf of Martaban coastlines, home to nearly a quarter of Myanmar's 57 million people.

Source: CNN

Wow this is absolutely devastating news. Definitely keep Myanmar in your prayers

[AYHJA]

Good Lord...God bless man, that's horrible news...

[ne0knight]

This is unprecedented, just absolutely insane ... my heart goes out to all the people affected. I can't think of a modern era natural disaster of this scale.

[raum]

Myanmar is not exactly where you want to be in a rice shortage. It's horrendous there, as it is.

Still, this takes me back to when I was saying giving a prisoner rotting in a cell a chance at making a difference in a place, like Myanmar, and reinforces that.

If Myanmar, a.k.a. Burhma, wasn't in your prayers before, they should definitely be now. The junta will be hard pressed to let people to help in,.. and those same people will be lucky when they decide to let them out.

[raum]

and the Miltary Junta is stealing the supplies from human relief efforts. great!