THE MASS-MURDERING PSYCHOPATH CHRISTIAN GOD STRIKES AGAIN
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/06/myanmar.cyclone/index.html
YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) -- A Myanmar government radio station said Tuesday
that more than 22,000 people are dead and 41,000 missing after the
catastrophic cyclone that battered the country.
Buddhist monks move branches from an uprooted tree blocking a street in
Yangon.
A news broadcast on the state-run station said Tuesday that 22,464 people
had been confirmed dead from Cyclone Nargis. The broadcast added that
41,000
more were missing.
The U.N. estimated up to a million could be homeless.
China's state-run Xinhua news agency, quoting officials, re****ted a death
toll of 10,000 alone in the town****p of Bogalay.
CNN's Dan Rivers, the only western journalist in Bogalay, said he had seen
nothing but destroyed homes for 30 kilometers and people were now
sheltering
under canvas covers. They had little food bar a small amount of eggs and
rice.
Rivers said he had seen the army and Red Cross in the area, but the
weather
remained awful and conditions were miserable.
The aftermath has pushed Myanmar's normally secretive ruling military
junta
to ask for aid and release details of the devastation. However, the U.N.
said its aid workers were still waiting for visas to enter the country.
It,
the Red Cross and other aid organizations have been gathering supplies to
****p to the country.
Some aid agencies re****ted their *****sment teams had reached some areas
of
the largely isolated region but said getting in supplies and large numbers
of aid workers would be difficult, The Associated Press re****ted.
Maung Maung Swe, Myanmar's social welfare minister, told re****ters Tuesday
that 95 percent of the homes in Bogalay -- a city of 190,000 -- had been
destroyed, AFP re****ted.
"Ninety-five percent of the houses in Bogalay were destroyed," he said,
adding that most of the damage was caused by the 3.6 meter storm surge
that
accompanied the cyclone.
"Many people were killed in a 12-foot tidal wave," he said.
Swe said the country needed aid now, AP re****ted.
"Instead of waiting for figures on casualties and damage, it will be
practical to send humanitarian aid to victims as soon as possible."
The U.N. World Food Program (WFP), which was preparing to fly in food
supplies, offered a grim *****sment of the destruction: up to a million
people possibly homeless, some villages almost totally destroyed and vast
rice-growing areas wiped out, AP re****ted.
"We hope to fly in more assistance within the next 48 hours," WFP
spokesman
Paul Risley said in Bangkok. "The challenge will be getting to the
affected
areas with road blockages everywhere."
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, which is home to nearly a quarter of
Myanmar's 57 million people.
Kyi Minn, of the international aid group World Vision, told CNN that the
situation was bleak.
"It could be worse than [the] tsunami," Minn said, comparing the cyclone's
impact on Myanmar to the damage caused following the tsunami that struck
the
region in late 2004. The tsunami was triggered by a a massive earthquake
off
the coast of Indonesia and killed more than 150,000 across the region.
Minn said clean drinking water, food, medicine and shelter were all at a
premium.
Tropical Cyclone Nargis pummeled Yangon for more than 10 hours from Friday
night into Saturday, with 20 inches of rain and winds above 240 km/hr.
While Myanmar's ruling military junta has been accused by U.S. first lady
Laura Bush of not warning the public about the approaching cyclone,
witnesses say state media did re****t the storm -- it just came too late.
"We did get a warning, but it seems the military warned at a late stage,"
an
Australian witness in Yangon told CNN, adding there was no time for people
to evacuate or buy emergency supplies.
She also said that perhaps "a lot of Burmese didn't take it as seriously
as
they could have."
MRTV disputed media accounts of insufficient warnings ahead of the storm.
"Timely weather re****ts were announced and aired" on TV and radio two to
three days in advance to keep people "safe and secure," an MRTV anchor
re****ted.
Video from the scene showed residents in some areas hacking their way
through downed trees and trudging through knee-deep, swirling brown water.
Thousands of tropical trees had been ripped up and thrown down, some into
roadways.
Terje Skavdal, of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs,
called it a "major crisis."
"It is a major undertaking to get it right for the government," Skavdal
told
CNN in an interview from Bangkok, Thailand. "There is a major job ahead of
us."
As the international community prepared a response, survivors faced the
chaos the disaster caused.
Most telephone and cell phone service was down in Yangon, a city of about
6.5 million people, Rivers said earlier Tuesday before traveling to
Bogalay.
In some places, the price of fuel had quadrupled to $10 a gallon in the
wake
of the storm, he said. Even with that price lines for gas stretched around
the block and some were turning to the black market.
The price of eggs had doubled, the main water supply had been cut in many
areas and power lines were down, Rivers said.
"No food. No water," an exasperated man told him. "So you have to find
everything."
Residents of one small community told Rivers that the army had been
through
to clear the main road but had not helped with recovery efforts.
The U.N. said International aid organizations were meeting to determine
how
best to help the thousands of people who had been affected by the storm.
A U.N. humanitarian official told CNN a five-person disaster assistance
coordination team had arrived in Bangkok, but they would not know until
later on Tuesday when they could enter Myanmar.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said
it
had released $190,000 to help with the aftermath of the storm, the
European
Commission has pledged $3.1 million, Canada $2 million, China an
unspecified
amount and Thailand $100,000 in cash and aid.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Myanmar has issued a "disaster declaration"
in the country and authorized the release of $250,000 for cyclone relief
efforts, Deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey said. A disaster
relief
team was on standby, he said, but the Myanmar government had not given
permission for the team to enter the country.
The State Department issued a travel warning Monday night, authorizing the
departure of non-emergency U.S. personnel at the embassy and warning
American citizens to "strongly consider" departing Myanmar.
The country's state radio said Saturday's vote on a military-backed draft
constitution would be delayed until May 24 in 40 of 45 town****ps in the
Yangon area and seven in the Irrawaddy delta, AP re****ted.
The constitutional referendum is referred to in the state-run media as the
fourth step of a "seven-step road map to democracy."
The government has said elections will be held in 2010 to choose a
representative government to replace the military junta.
Myanmar, traditionally known as Burma, last held multi-party elections in
1990, when Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy handily won.
The
military junta ignored the results.
The regime has come under intense international pressure, especially after
using force last year to suppress a pro-democracy movement
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