Grim fight for survival after Myanmar cyclone
Pastor Dale Morgan
Grim fight for survival after Myanmar cyclone*
by Staff Writers
Yangon (AFP) May 10, 2008
More than one million homeless in Myanmar were battling to stave off
disease and hunger Thursday, but the military government maintained
tight limits on foreign assistance six days after a massive cyclone.
With death toll estimates near 100,000 and the clock ticking for those
who survived, Myanmar's junta -- long suspicious of the outside world --
came under new pressure to fully open up to help from abroad.
Aid was only trickling in despite warnings that specialists were needed
to deliver food and water into disaster zones strewn with rotting
bodies, and it was unclear if the regime had yet given visas to foreign
aid staff.
The United Nations Security Council was divided on how to respond to the
emergency, with Western members urging strong pressure on Myanmar to
allow foreign relief aid while China warned against politicising the issue.
Earlier, UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said he was "disappointed"
with Myanmar over its failure to facilitate entry to more foreign relief
workers and supplies to cope with the disaster.
He said UN chief Ban Ki-moon was trying to talk to junta leader Than
Shwe to urge him "strongly to facilitate access" for foreign relief workers.
And Ban himself urged the regime to focus on mobilising resources rather
than on the upcoming constitutional referendum.
Amid mounting international pressure on the junta, The White House urged
Myanmar to allow US disaster relief into the country while a State
Department official said the US was mulling dropping food aid, hinting
it may go ahead without the junta's approval.
But US Defence Secretary Robert Gates later said although the US
military was positioning ships and helicopters to move relief supplies
quickly into Myanmar, it would not do so until it was given the go-ahead
by the Myanmar government.
There are fears that many of those who survived the first tragedy may
succumb to a second, falling prey to hunger and disease while the
supplies that might save them languish nearby with no way -- or no
permission -- to get in.
Aid groups said the country needs hundreds of planeloads of supplies and
equipment to cope with Cyclone Nargis, which barrelled into Myanmar
overnight Friday, unleashing one of the worst natural disasters in history.
They said help was slowly arriving, but not enough -- and not quickly
enough -- for most of those in the stricken southwest Irrawaddy delta
who saw their villages ripped apart or washed away.
The UN said four disaster experts received permission to travel to
Myanmar, but there was no immediate word for hundreds of others awaiting
a green light from the military, which has ruled the former Burma since
1962.
Later Thursday, Britain's UN Ambassador John Sawers said London looked
to the Myanmar regime "to take the necessary measures to allow
humanitarian relief in."
But Chinese deputy ambassador Liu Zhenmin said the issue involved a
natural disaster that should be handled by competent UN agencies and not
by the Security Council, which is tasked with handling threats to
international peace and security.
In a rare break from its policy of non-interference in its members'
affairs, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) pressed the
junta to soften its stance, as did China, Myanmar's most powerful ally.
It is not known if all the remote delta settlements have been reached by
the government. But with the devastation widespread, and apparently
thousands of dead rotting on the ground, the regime upped the official
death toll by 17.
State-run television gave the latest figures as 22,997 dead, 1,430
injured and 42,119 missing.
But a military official in the delta township of Labutta estimated
80,000 dead there alone, and many families there told an AFP reporter
most of their relatives had been killed.
"Houses collapsed, buildings collapsed, and people were swept away," one
man said. "I only survived by hanging on to a big tree."
Around 5,000 square kilometres (1,930 square miles) remain underwater,
and more than a million homeless need emergency relief, a UN spokesman said.
Shari Villarosa, US charge d'affaires in Myanmar's main city Yangon,
said there could be more than 100,000 dead in the Irrawaddy delta, where
95 percent of buildings were reported to have disappeared.
Food prices in Myanmar, already one of the world's most impoverished
nations, have soared. A bag of rice now costs 40,000 kyats (35 dollars)
in the commercial hub Yangon, up from 25,000 last week.
Despite the crisis, the government said it plans to go ahead Saturday
with a constitutional referendum as part of a slow-moving process to
restore democracy -- a process critics say is only intended to cement
the army's grip on power.