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Tuesday, 6 May 2008
Burma aid chief fears 50,000 dead in cyclone
 Things must be bad in Burma. After the Boxing Day tsunami all that I ever read about damage in that country was that the Myanmar government reported “damage to several coastal villages”. And while I wondered that there must be more than that, the news was swamped with stories from Sri Lanka, Thailand and elsewhere.
If the Myanmar regime, noted for its isolationism and brutality is asking for help things must be much worse.
From the Australian paper The Age.
Up to 50,000 people may have been killed and millions left homeless by the worst natural disaster in living memory in Burma, a Western aid worker fears.
The Burma country director for welfare agency Save The Children, Canadian Andrew Kirkwood, has urged the international community to act now to head off a mounting humanitarian crisis after Cyclone Nargis struck the nation on Saturday.
But he has warned it could take years for Burma, ruled by a hardline military dictatorship, to recover from the storm, which brought 190km/h winds and a monster storm surge that has inundated large areas.
While official figures tonight suggested 15,000 people had died in the cyclone, Mr Kirkwood said he feared the scale of the disaster was far greater.
"This is going to be a response that will take years to complete," Mr Kirkwood told AAP by phone from his office in Rangoon.
"We think 50,000 people are dead and millions are homeless, so this is not a humanitarian response that can be completed immediately.
"I don't think any government in the world could cope with this on their own."
Neighbouring Thailand and Bangladesh had pledged building materials and supplies, and Save The Children was negotiating with the government to bring in more by air, but Mr Kirkwood said international help was needed now.
"This storm is not just unprecedented from my time here. I've talked to people in Yangon (Rangoon) that have never seen anything like this," he said. Posted on 8:25 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Comments
6 May 2008
 Hugh Fitzgerald
How pleasing to find that the title contains the word "Burma" rather than hideous Myanmar. Burma should be the name. Wavell, Slim, Orde Wingate. The Burma Road. And of course those Route 66 rhymes that always ended with "Burma Shave." Myanmar Shave will not do. And while we are at it, we insist that Upper Volta be allowed to again become Upper Volta, shedding "Burkina Faso" (which makes one think of a fuse, or "fuso orario"), a name that in the local language means "strong man" while Upper Volta nicely locates the country in space. We've had quite enough of strong men in Africa. And Sri Lanka -- that will have to go too. It's Ceylon. And the names recently adopted for other parts of the world also need attention. Ho Chi Minh City is unacceptable, intolerable; Saigon needs to come back soon, not only because Ho Chi Minh should not be honored, but because Saigon better evokes the French theme -- Marguerite Duras and "L'Amant," with, tinkles of "La Petite Tonkinoise" as sung by Josephine Bakairr in the background and, in the foreground, Marie Dubas or Edith Piaf singing "Mon Legionnaire." Today's a start. Today we have renaming of parts. 6 May 2008
Mary Jackson I've been to Saigon. That's what the Vietnamese call it. Don't get me started on "Beijing". 6 May 2008
Esmerelda Weatherwax
My friend in infant school who lived in the same street was Burmese.
6 May 2008
Mary Jackson My cat is one eighth Burmese. 6 May 2008
Special Guest
Meanwhile, the Burmese government has still refused to allow the kufirs to enter the country to assist in rescue and recovery. |