Cyclone dead wash ashore on distant Myanmar beach
Pastor Dale Morgan
Cyclone dead wash ashore on distant Myanmar beach*
YANGON, June 14 (AFP) Jun 14, 2008
Hundreds of bloated and decaying corpses, apparently victims of Cyclone
Nargis, washed up on a beach in eastern Myanmar more than one month
after the storm, a local official said Saturday.
The bodies had been found in the last week on the beach near Mawlamyine
town, across the Gulf of Martaban, more than 100 miles (160 kilometres)
east of the devastated Irrawaddy Delta, the official told AFP.
More than 133,000 people were killed or are missing after the cyclone
struck six weeks ago. Many were washed out to sea as a tidal surge wiped
out their villages.
"Hundreds of dead bodies have been cremated in the last week, after they
floated into Kyaikkhami and Setse beaches. They were all decomposing.
Most of them appeared to be women," said the official who spoke on
condition of anonymity.
"Some fishermen saw these dead bodies on the beaches and informed the
authorities," he said. "We decided to cremate them for the sake of the
environment," he said.
Residents told AFP by telephone that many people had moved away to avoid
the grim scenes of bodies washing onto the beaches.
The descriptions recalled the devastation in the delta last month, when
victims' bodies were left rotting on roadsides and floating in rice
fields, where in many cases they laid for weeks.