Myanmar death toll soars, diplomats tour delta
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Myanmar death toll soars, diplomats tour delta*
17 May 2008 08:26:46 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Toll of dead and missing soars to above 133,000
* Diplomats on tour of worst-hit delta
* Monks important in aid distribution
* Aid agency urges government to increase access
By Aung Hla Tun
YANGON, May 17 (Reuters) - Myanmar's junta took diplomats on a tour of
the storm-ravaged Irrawaddy delta on Saturday as the toll of dead and
missing from Cyclone Nargis soared above 133,000 people, making it one
of the most devastating ever to hit Asia.
In the last 50 years, only two Asian cyclones have exceeded Nargis in
terms of human cost -- a 1970 storm that killed 500,000 people in
neighbouring Bangladesh, and another that killed 143,000 in 1991, also
in Bangladesh.
However, with an estimated 2.5 million people clinging to survival in
the delta, and the military government refusing to admit large-scale
outside relief, disaster experts say Nargis' body count could yet rise
dramatically.
British officials say the actual toll may already be more than 200,000.
The military, which has ruled unchecked for the last 46 years, insists
it is capable of handling aid distribution, seemingly out of fear an
influx of helping foreigners might loosen its vice-like grip on power.
With heavy tropical downpours continuing to hamper the aid effort on
Saturday, the generals took Yangon-based diplomats into the delta to see
the army's relief operations, although it was expected to be a
stage-managed and highly sanitised trip.
One envoy who went on a similar tour of a storm-hit district of Yangon,
the former capital, described the neat rows of tents on display as
"happy camps".
In the delta, the junta will have to work much harder to keep the
diplomats away from the destitute.
Near the town of Kunyangon this week, columns of men, women and children
stretched for miles alongside the road, begging in the mud and rain for
scraps of food or clothing from the occasional passing aid vehicle.
MONASTERIES AND MONKS
Many storm refugees are crammed into monasteries and schools and are
being fed and watered by local volunteers and private donors who have
taken matters into their own hands, sending in trucks laden with
clothes, biscuits, dried noodles and rice.
Buddhist monks play a major role.
"We have distributed over 100 tonnes of rice and more than 3,000 tin
roofing sheets so far. We are trying to distribute more," said the
Venerable Nyanissara.
He oversees a makeshift relief centre in the town of Kunthechaung where
one by one, maroon-robed monks put up their hands before coming forward
to accept carefully measured quotas of food for their storm-hit home
villages.
Given the monks' unquestioned moral authority in the devoutly Buddhist
southeast Asian nation, private donors are happy to see the
shaven-headed men taking charge of goods brought down to the delta in
rickety trucks, vans and boats.
The generals are admitting aid flights to Yangon, including around four
a day from the United States, their arch enemy.
But aid agencies say only a fraction of needed relief gets to the
inundated part of the delta, an area the size of Austria, and more lives
are at risk unless the situation improves.
RARE AGREEMENT
In a rare sign of agreement with international aid agencies, the junta
sharply raised its toll from the May 2 disaster on Friday night to
77,738 dead and another 55,917 missing.
The news came on state TV, which has mainly shown footage of generals
handing out food at the model tented villages.
People in Myanmar are snapping up bootleg video discs of bloated
corpses, desperate refugees and ravaged villages to get a fuller picture
of the situation.
"Myanmar television is useless," said a Yangon businessman who bought
the underground VCDs to see the raw, uncensored version of the storm
that killed his brother in Labutta, one of the hardest-hit towns in the
Irrawaddy delta.
Given the junta's virtual ban on foreign journalists and restrictions on
aid workers, independent assessment is difficult.
As international frustration mounts, envoys have been flying in to try
to coax the generals out of their deep distrust of the outside world.
The latest is the U.N.'s top humanitarian official, John Holmes,
expected to arrive in Yangon on Sunday.
A spokeswoman said Holmes will carry a third letter from U.N. Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon to junta supremo Than Shwe, who has repeatedly
ignored Ban's requests for a conversation. (Writing by Ed Cropley and
Jerry Norton; Editing by David Fox)