At least 22,000 feared dead in Myanmar cyclone - Page 2

ChrisF202 · 05-07-2008, 18:07 PM

They now say that the death toll may go up to 100,000

This is truly a disaster of biblical proportions, and I suspect the military govt. did not issue warnings which contributed to the death toll

gunnut · 05-07-2008, 18:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChrisF202

They now say that the death toll may go up to 100,000

This is truly a disaster of biblical proportions, and I suspect the military govt. did not issue warnings which contributed to the death toll

Actually storms like this are common throughout history. The difference is now there are more people in their way and we have near instantaneous knowledge of the disaster with video footage.

The government did broadcast warnings....on TV. Which is useless when the population survives on $2 a day and have about 1 TV per viliage.

FOG3 · 05-07-2008, 18:26 PM

So where's USNS Mercy presently?

I suppose the real question is whether they'll redirect from the Phillipines to Burma.

mweber24 · 05-07-2008, 18:31 PM

Not as close at the ESSEX and its group with 1800 Marines... But I don't think the US will go to war for the privledge of feeding people.

gunnut · 05-07-2008, 18:36 PM

Last I heard the Essex group of 3 ships are just outside of Myanmar. Kittyhawk and Nimitz are within a few days if they're needed. It's all up to Myanmar's government to give us permission to save their people.

1947 · 05-08-2008, 05:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ryan Bailey

Given the present state of affairs I would certainly support an invasion by a coalition of the willing in the interest of relief for the dying masses of the brutal regime.

We are praying for those affacted by this cataclysm.

the more those bigots keep delaying aid agencies the more u get tempted to send in the troops i still dont think they get it (the scale of the disaster) they r probably scared of the political change it might bring due to a huge foreign presence like it did in the 2004 tsunami

1947 · 05-08-2008, 05:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gunnut

Actually storms like this are common throughout history. The difference is now there are more people in their way and we have near instantaneous knowledge of the disaster with video footage.

The government did broadcast warnings....on TV. Which is useless when the population survives on $2 a day and have about 1 TV per viliage.

to make matters worse and add to the fact that they don't realise they (military generals) are digging their own graves by not letting aid get to the disaster zones immediately

LetsTalk · 05-08-2008, 23:54 PM

Greek aid flight departs for Burma | The Australian

Greek aid flight departs for Burma

From correspondents in Athens | May 09, 2008

A GREEK military plane left for Burma today loaded with humanitarian aid for victims of cyclone Nargis, the Greek airforce said, after the southeast Asian country approved the mission.

The Hercules C-130 transport plane was carrying tents, sheets, blankets and medicine donated by the Greek Red Cross and Greece-based non-governmental organisation World Pharmacists, the Greek foreign ministry said.

The Burmese military government has appeared reluctant to let in foreign aid after last week's devastating cyclone, with death toll estimates nearing 100,000.

Aid was only trickling in despite warnings that specialists were needed to deliver food and water through disaster zones strewn with rotting bodies, and it was unclear if the regime was giving visas to foreign aid staff.

The Greek flight will pass from Dubai and Calcutta before arriving in Rangoon, where it has received permission to land, the airforce said.

A second flight will likely follow on Saturday, carrying more medicine and bedclothes and a team of Greek doctors, Greek authorities said.

"There will be more aid missions with planes and containers," deputy foreign minister Petros Doukas told state television NET at Elefsis airfield outside Athens.

"We will do our duty. We are among the first four nations to send aid," he said.

Greece will also provide money through the United Nations World Food Programme.

Aid groups said the country needs hundreds of planes to cope with the effects of the cyclone, which barrelled into Burma last week, unleashing one of the worst natural disasters in recent memory.

They said help was slowly arriving from Thailand, China and India, 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.

LetsTalk · 05-08-2008, 23:57 PM

The Sault Star - Ontario, CA

First major aid flights head to Myanmar
Posted 18 hours ago

Myanmar's isolationist military regime gave the go-ahead for the first major airlift of international aid into the country Thursday, while dragging its feet on urgently requested visas by foreign agencies several days after a devastating cyclone. Myanmar's state media said Cyclone Nargis on Saturday has killed at least 22,980 people and left 42,119 missing, but a top U.S. diplomat said Wednesday that more than 100,000 may have perished.

Four aircraft loaded with critically needed food from the U.N. World Food Program were set to land at Yangon airport Thursday morning for rapid delivery to the Irrawaddy delta, where last Saturday's cyclone wreaked the greatest damage, the agency said.

The flights included 45 metric tons of high-energy biscuits.

"It is critical that we reach the hungry and homeless in Myanmar with ready-to-eat food as soon as possible to help them survive this horrific disaster," the UN agency said in a news release from Washington.

As international relief began to trickle in, hungry people swarmed the few open shops and fistfights broke out over food and water in the swamped delta.

Minutes of a UN aid meeting obtained by The Associated Press, meanwhile, revealed that the military junta's visa restrictions were hampering international relief efforts.

Only a handful of UN aid workers had been let into the impoverished Southeast Asian country, which the government has kept isolated for five decades to maintain its iron-fisted control. The U.S. and other countries rushed supplies to the region, but most of it was being held outside Myanmar while awaiting the junta's permission to deliver it.

Entire villages in the Irrawaddy delta were still submerged from Saturday's storm, and bloated corpses could be seen stuck in the mangroves. Some survivors stripped clothes off the dead. People wailed as they described the horror of the torrent swept ashore by the cyclone.

"I don't know what happened to my wife and young children," said Phan Maung, 55, who held onto a coconut tree until the water level dropped. By then his family was gone.

A spokesman for the UN Children's Fund said its staff in Myanmar reported seeing many people huddled in roughly built shelters and children who had lost their parents.

"There's widespread devastation. Buildings and health centres are flattened and bloated dead animals are floating around, which is an alarm for spreading disease. These are massive and horrific scenes," Patrick McCormick said at UNICEF offices in New York.

gunnut · 05-09-2008, 00:44 AM

Quote:

Myanmar junta accept aid, not aid workers

Military regime allows in supplies, but visas stalled for relief workers

updated 36 minutes ago
YANGON, Myanmar - After snubbing a U.S. aid offer, Myanmar indicated Friday that it wants foreign relief to help recover from a devastating cyclone but not foreign workers. fvckers want to take credit for themselves to further their grip

The statement came a day after Myanmar's military government allowed in the first major international aid shipment.

The Foreign Ministry said that it had given priority to receiving foreign aid but was using its own nationals to deliver it to stricken areas.

The United Nations and other agencies have complained that Myanmar is dragging its feet on the issuing of visas for its personnel they say are badly needed to cope with the crisis.

Myanmar's military regime allowed in the first major international aid shipment Thursday, but it snubbed a U.S. offer to help victims struggling to recover from a tragedy of unimaginable scale.

Five days after the storm, the junta continued to stall on visas for U.N. teams and other foreign aid workers anxious to deliver food, water and medicine to survivors amid fears the death toll could hit 100,000.

Among those stranded in Thailand were 10 members of the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team. Air Force transport planes and helicopters packed with supplies also sat waiting for a greenlight.

"We are in a long line of nations who are ready, willing and able to help, but also, of course, in a long line of nations the Burmese don't trust," U.S. Ambassador Eric John told reporters in Thailand's capital, Bangkok.

"It's more than frustrating. It's a tragedy," he said. Each day of delay means "a lot more people suffering," he said.

Shortage of food
Myanmar's isolationist regime issued an appeal for international assistance after winds of 120 mph and a storm surge up to 15 feet high pounded the Irrawaddy delta Saturday.

But the junta has been accused of dragging its feet despite emerging reports on entire villages submerged, bodies floating in salty water and children ripped from their parents arms.

"My children were crying all night. There is not enough food. There will be no food this evening," said Daw Thay, who took refuge in a monastery with her three children and her 99-year-old mother in a town 60 miles south of Yangon, the country's biggest city.

Daw Thay, 42, said monks were going without food so others could eat.

"We share what we have but there isn't enough. So they (the monks) give the food to the children and the old people first," she said.

Juanita Vasquez, a UNICEF worker in Myanmar, said Thursday that the most dramatic scene she's witnessed were children who have lost or become separated from parents.

There are "more children roaming around this area looking for their families," she said in a telephone interview from Yangon. "We don't know at the moment how many have lost their parents and relatives."

In the swampy delta, a horrible stench rose from corpses and dead animals, bloated and floating in the water. Someone had written on a black asphalt road in Kongyangon village: "We are all in trouble. Please come help us." A few feet away, the desperate plea, "We're hungry."

Not waiting for help
Tired of waiting for help in Yangon, red-robed monks, other civilians and dozens of soldiers cleared piles of debris and toppled billboards from streets and cutting branches off uprooted trees.

"They've started doing the clean up themselves," Aye Chan Naing, chief editor of Democratic Voice of Burma, said as a light rain showered down. "They are volunteers."

Public transportation was slowly coming back to life in the city, with some trains operating, and cars formed lines three miles long to get rations of two gallons of gasoline.

The cyclone blew off the roof of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's dilapidated bungalow in Yangon and cut off its electricity, a neighbor said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. Suu Kyi, who received a Nobel Peace Prize for her pro-democracy activism, has been under house arrest for years.

More than 20,000 are known dead and tens of thousands more are listed as missing, and the U.N. estimates more than 1 million people are homeless in Myanmar, which also is known as Burma.

Four airplanes carrying high-energy biscuits, medicine and other supplies reached Yangon on Thursday, U.N. officials said. Two of four U.N. experts who flew in to assess the damage were turned back at the airport for unknown reasons, but the other two were allowed to enter, said John Holmes, the U.N. relief coordinator.

By rejecting the U.S. aid offer, the junta is refusing to take advantage of Washington's enormous ability to deliver aid quickly, which was evident during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen nations.

Looking for a breakthrough
The first foreign military aid following that disaster reached the hardest-hit nation, Indonesia, two days later. The most significant help came when U.S. helicopters from the USS Abraham Lincoln began flying relief missions to isolated communities along the Indonesian coast.

It was the biggest U.S. military operation in Southeast Asia since the Vietnam War.

With the Irrawaddy delta's roads washed out and the infrastructure in shambles, large swaths of the region are accessible only by air, something few other countries are equipped to handle as well as the United States.

Tim Costello, chief executive of World Vision Australia, said that "it's certainly the case that the Americans, as they showed in the tsunami, have extraordinary capacity."

The U.S. government, which has strongly criticized the junta's suppression of pro-democracy activists, will have to convince the generals that Washington has no political agenda, Costello said.

"Clearly we all know the political context there, and I think it's going to take a little bit more time for a breakthrough," he said.

Gordon Johndroe, President Bush's national security spokesman, said the U.S. was working to gain permission to enter Myanmar.

‘Keep the contributions coming’
One American official, Ky Luu, director of the U.S. office of foreign disaster assistance, created a stir by saying one option being considered was air-dropping aid without permission. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates quickly said he couldn't imagine that happening.

Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej of Thailand offered to negotiate on Washington's behalf to persuade Myanmar's government to accept U.S. aid.

France is arguing that the U.N. has the power to intervene without the junta's approval to help civilians under a 2005 agreement that the world body has a "responsibility to protect" people when governments fail to do it. That agreement did not mention natural disasters.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband asked Myanmar's junta to "lift all restrictions on the distribution of aid." Separately, Kouchner said France would make $3 million available to French aid groups operating in Myanmar.

The Association of Southeast Nations appealed to the international community to send relief supplies through Thailand.

"Please keep the help coming, keep the contributions coming, and if you have to, go to Thailand, park there and wait for redistribution from there," said ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan.

The U.S. military sent more humanitarian supplies and equipment to a staging area in Thailand on Thursday. A C-17 transport plane brought in water and food, joining the two C-130s already in place, Air Force spokeswoman Megan Orton said at the Pentagon. Another C-130 loaded with supplies was on its way, she said.

The U.S. Navy also has three ships participating in an exercise in the Gulf of Thailand that could help in a relief effort, including an amphibious assault ship with 23 helicopters.

60,000 unaccounted for
China, Myanmar's closest ally, urged the junta to work with the international community.

The London-based human rights group Amnesty International said some donors were delaying aid for fear it would be siphoned off to the army. The World Food Program's regional director, Anthony Banbury, indicated the U.N. had similar concerns.

"We will not just bring our supplies to an airport, dump it and take off," he said.

The U.N. refugee agency said it was assembling a truck convoy to take supplies from Thailand to Yangon, but it would take days to put the shipment together and up to two weeks to reach victims.

Myanmar's state media said Cyclone Nargis killed at least 22,997 people and left 42,019 missing, mostly in the Irrawaddy delta. Shari Villarosa, who heads the U.S. Embassy in Yangon, said the number of dead could eventually exceed 100,000 because of illnesses.

Asked about the death estimate, Costello of World Vision said hours after arriving in Yangon, "That extraordinary volume of rain, of wave, of wind just crushing everything, snapping everything in its wake, that death toll I think could be conceivable." He said some 60,000 people were unaccounted for.

The World Health Organization received reports of malaria outbreaks in the worst-affected area, and said fears of waterborne illnesses from dirty water and poor sanitation was a concern.

Myanmar's state television Thursday showed the prime minister, Lt. Gen. Thein Sein, distributing food packages to the sick and injured in the delta and soldiers dropping food over villages. The date of the distribution was not given.

Although most Yangon residents were preoccupied with trying to restore their lives, activists wrote fresh graffiti on overpasses, including "X" marks — a symbol for voting "no" in a referendum Saturday on a new constitution. Voting has been postponed until May 24 in Yangon, some outlying areas and parts of the delta.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the junta to postpone the referendum entirely and "focus instead on mobilizing all available resources and capacity for the emergency response efforts."

© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Myanmar accepts aid, not aid workers - Asia-Pacific - MSNBC.com

We are the best equiped to help thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands, yet we are not allowed to help.

I think the French have the right idea. Just go in and help those people. What the hell can the junta do?

troung · 05-09-2008, 01:47 AM

Page last updated at 00:52 GMT, Friday, 9 May 2008 01:52 UK
E-mail this to a friend Printable version
Forcing aid to Burma 'incendiary'
BBC NEWS | UK | Forcing aid to Burma 'incendiary'

Threatening to air-drop aid into Burma without permission is "incendiary", UK International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander has said.

He was responding to a call by France for aid to be flown into cyclone-hit areas to counter Burmese leaders' reluctance to allow foreigners in.

But Mr Alexander said the "best way forward" was an international "united front" to win access for aid agencies.

The Lib Dems said air drops were a "possibility" but were not efficient.

Some 23,000 people died as a result of the cyclone and tidal surge which hit Burma at the weekend. Another 1.5 million are at risk, according to the UN.

Access 'needed'

Mr Alexander told BBC 2's Newsnight that he was more interested in securing access than securing headlines with "incendiary statements".

"Our responsibility is to make sure that our sole focus is getting the aid to the people who desperately need it."

He said carrying out forced air-drops of supplies would be the wrong action to take.

"We believe that the best way forward would be for the junta to provide access, which the whole international community - including Ban Ki-moon [secretary general of the UN] - is requesting.

"That's why we've been making direct approaches, but we've also been speaking to other governments, including the government of China, urging them that there should be a united front to say that the access needs to be provided immediately."

I don't think we have any legal right to impose it [air drops] - we might have a moral obligation
Menzies Campbell
Former Liberal Democrat leader

Speaking on BBC1's Question Time, Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell also said forced drops would be counterproductive.

"The danger of going down this route ... is you could have military action happening which would stop help getting to people," he said.

Victims would also be put in a difficult position when accepting foreign aid when their own government had not permitted it, he added.

Former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell said air drops were a "possibility" because of the scale of the disaster, but were not the most efficient way of distributing supplies.

"I don't think we have any legal right to impose it - we might have a moral obligation.

Who is going to be at the receiving end of the air drops? It could be the Burmese army
Michael Heseltine
Former Conservative deputy prime minister

"But I don't believe we could give effect to that moral obligation for this reason - Burma is essentially a state run by the generals with an extremely powerful army.

"Any effort to impose humanitarian aid might well be the subject of resistance which would have the effect of damaging yet more of the people of that blighted country."

Former Conservative deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine said air drops should only be considered if they could be guaranteed to be effective.

"Who is going to be at the receiving end of the air drops? It could be the Burmese army. It could be the very people least affected by the tragedy that is going on."

France argues air drops without permission could be allowed under a UN "responsibility to protect" mandate and it wants to raise the crisis in Burma at the UN Security Council.

The British government has so far pledged £5m in aid to help with the aftermath of the disaster.

Seventeen Britons in Burma are still unaccounted for after the cyclone hit the country on Saturday.

rat · 05-09-2008, 02:23 AM

Quote:

The Associated Press: UN blasts Myanmar for visa policy on aid workers
UN blasts Myanmar for visa policy on aid workers

1 hour ago

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — The United Nations says Myanmar's refusal to give visas to relief experts is "unprecedented" in the history of humanitarian work.

A spokesman of the World Food Program says the organization has submitted 10 visa applications around the world, including six in Bangkok, Thailand, and none of have been granted.

Spokesman Paul Risley said Friday "the frustration caused by what appears to be a paperwork delay is unprecedented in modern humanitarian relief efforts."

Myanmar's military government said more than 62,000 people died or are missing in a cyclone that hit the country's Irrawaddy delta last Saturday. The junta says it needs international aid but not the foreign experts and staff to deliver it.

No visas are expected to be issued in Bangkok on Friday because of a Thai holiday.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — After snubbing a U.S. aid offer, Myanmar's isolationist regime indicated Friday that it wants foreign relief supplies but not foreign workers to help recover from a devastating cyclone.

The statement came a day after Myanmar's military government allowed in the first major international aid shipment amid fears the death toll from last weekend's cyclone could hit 100,000.

"Currently Myanmar has prioritized receiving emergency relief provisions and making strenuous effort delivering it with its own labor," the Foreign Ministry said in the state-owned New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

The United Nations and other agencies have complained that Myanmar is dragging its feet on the issuing of visas for its personnel they say are badly needed to cope with the crisis.

The statement expressed government gratitude to the international community for its assistance, which has included 11 chartered planes loaded with aid supplies. But it emphasized that the best way to help was just to send in material rather than personnel.

Among those aid workers stranded in Thailand were 10 members of the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team. Air Force transport planes and helicopters packed with supplies also sat waiting for a greenlight.

"We are in a long line of nations who are ready, willing and able to help, but also, of course, in a long line of nations the Burmese don't trust," U.S. Ambassador Eric John told reporters in Thailand's capital, Bangkok, Thursday.

"It's more than frustrating. It's a tragedy," he said. Each day of delay means "a lot more people suffering," he said.

Myanmar's isolationist regime issued an appeal for international assistance after winds of 120 mph and a storm surge up to 15 feet high pounded the Irrawaddy delta Saturday.

But the junta has been accused of dragging its feet despite emerging reports on entire villages submerged, bodies floating in salty water and children ripped from their parents arms.

"My children were crying all night. There is not enough food. There will be no food this evening," said Daw Thay, who took refuge in a monastery with her three children and her 99-year-old mother in a town 60 miles south of Yangon, the country's biggest city.

Daw Thay, 42, said monks were going without food so others could eat.

"We share what we have but there isn't enough. So they (the monks) give the food to the children and the old people first," she said.

Juanita Vasquez, a UNICEF worker in Myanmar, said Thursday that the most dramatic scene she's witnessed were children who have lost or become separated from parents.

There are "more children roaming around this area looking for their families," she said in a telephone interview from Yangon. "We don't know at the moment how many have lost their parents and relatives."

In the swampy delta, a horrible stench rose from corpses and dead animals, bloated and floating in the water. Someone had written on a black asphalt road in Kongyangon village: "We are all in trouble. Please come help us." A few feet away, the desperate plea, "We're hungry."

Tired of waiting for help in Yangon, red-robed monks, other civilians and dozens of soldiers cleared piles of debris and toppled billboards from streets and cutting branches off uprooted trees.

"They've started doing the clean up themselves," Aye Chan Naing, chief editor of Democratic Voice of Burma, said as a light rain showered down. "They are volunteers."

Public transportation was slowly coming back to life in the city, with some trains operating, and cars formed lines three miles long to get rations of two gallons of gasoline.

The cyclone blew off the roof of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's dilapidated bungalow in Yangon and cut off its electricity, a neighbor said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. Suu Kyi, who received a Nobel Peace Prize for her pro-democracy activism, has been under house arrest for years.

More than 20,000 are known dead and tens of thousands more are listed as missing, and the U.N. estimates more than 1 million people are homeless in Myanmar, which also is known as Burma.

Four airplanes carrying high-energy biscuits, medicine and other supplies reached Yangon on Thursday, U.N. officials said. Two of four U.N. experts who flew in to assess the damage were turned back at the airport for unknown reasons, but the other two were allowed to enter, said John Holmes, the U.N. relief coordinator.

By rejecting the U.S. aid offer, the junta is refusing to take advantage of Washington's enormous ability to deliver aid quickly, which was evident during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen nations.

The first foreign military aid following that disaster reached the hardest-hit nation, Indonesia, two days later. The most significant help came when U.S. helicopters from the USS Abraham Lincoln began flying relief missions to isolated communities along the Indonesian coast.

It was the biggest U.S. military operation in Southeast Asia since the Vietnam War.

With the Irrawaddy delta's roads washed out and the infrastructure in shambles, large swaths of the region are accessible only by air, something few other countries are equipped to handle as well as the United States.

Tim Costello, chief executive of World Vision Australia, said that "it's certainly the case that the Americans, as they showed in the tsunami, have extraordinary capacity."

The U.S. government, which has strongly criticized the junta's suppression of pro-democracy activists, will have to convince the generals that Washington has no political agenda, Costello said.

"Clearly we all know the political context there, and I think it's going to take a little bit more time for a breakthrough," he said.

Gordon Johndroe, President Bush's national security spokesman, said the U.S. was working to gain permission to enter Myanmar.

One American official, Ky Luu, director of the U.S. office of foreign disaster assistance, created a stir by saying one option being considered was air-dropping aid without permission. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates quickly said he couldn't imagine that happening.

Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej of Thailand offered to negotiate on Washington's behalf to persuade Myanmar's government to accept U.S. aid.

France is arguing that the U.N. has the power to intervene without the junta's approval to help civilians under a 2005 agreement that the world body has a "responsibility to protect" people when governments fail to do it. That agreement did not mention natural disasters.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband asked Myanmar's junta to "lift all restrictions on the distribution of aid." Separately, Kouchner said France would make $3 million available to French aid groups operating in Myanmar.

The Association of Southeast Nations appealed to the international community to send relief supplies through Thailand.

"Please keep the help coming, keep the contributions coming, and if you have to, go to Thailand, park there and wait for redistribution from there," said ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan.

The U.S. military sent more humanitarian supplies and equipment to a staging area in Thailand on Thursday. A C-17 transport plane brought in water and food, joining the two C-130s already in place, Air Force spokeswoman Megan Orton said at the Pentagon. Another C-130 loaded with supplies was on its way, she said.

The U.S. Navy also has three ships participating in an exercise in the Gulf of Thailand that could help in a relief effort, including an amphibious assault ship with 23 helicopters.

China, Myanmar's closest ally, urged the junta to work with the international community.

The London-based human rights group Amnesty International said some donors were delaying aid for fear it would be siphoned off to the army. The World Food Program's regional director, Anthony Banbury, indicated the U.N. had similar concerns.

"We will not just bring our supplies to an airport, dump it and take off," he said.

The U.N. refugee agency said it was assembling a truck convoy to take supplies from Thailand to Yangon, but it would take days to put the shipment together and up to two weeks to reach victims.

Myanmar's state media said Cyclone Nargis killed at least 22,997 people and left 42,019 missing, mostly in the Irrawaddy delta. Shari Villarosa, who heads the U.S. Embassy in Yangon, said the number of dead could eventually exceed 100,000 because of illnesses.

Asked about the death estimate, Costello of World Vision said hours after arriving in Yangon, "That extraordinary volume of rain, of wave, of wind just crushing everything, snapping everything in its wake, that death toll I think could be conceivable." He said some 60,000 people were unaccounted for.

The World Health Organization received reports of malaria outbreaks in the worst-affected area, and said fears of waterborne illnesses from dirty water and poor sanitation was a concern.

Myanmar's state television Thursday showed the prime minister, Lt. Gen. Thein Sein, distributing food packages to the sick and injured in the delta and soldiers dropping food over villages. The date of the distribution was not given.

Although most Yangon residents were preoccupied with trying to restore their lives, activists wrote fresh graffiti on overpasses, including "X" marks — a symbol for voting "no" in a referendum Saturday on a new constitution. Voting has been postponed until May 24 in Yangon, some outlying areas and parts of the delta.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the junta to postpone the referendum entirely and "focus instead on mobilizing all available resources and capacity for the emergency response efforts."

This military regime is soulless. It doesnt seem to care about its own dying people. What a shame

physicsmonk · 05-09-2008, 11:12 AM

To add insult to injury we have these global warming missionaries.
Cyclone 'is a sign of things to come' | The Australian

Dreadnought · 05-09-2008, 11:57 AM

What the hell kind of government stands by when help is offered and denies access by those far more experienced with this sort of undertaking.

Dammit I know I would be calling for heads to roll if I was the people!

These poor people are dying left and right and the idiots in charge are afraid of aid workers? I hope their pessimisium will replace all of those lives which will certainly be lost due to pure ignorance. Must be nice to play god with a very poor population.

And this country wants to become a superpower?

I think someone needs to explain to them that becoming a superpower is more then parading missles, rockets and tanks around on tv when your people are dying due to injury,starvation and disease. It also takes being humble enough to accept help over pride and reassure your people that you are doing everything physically possible to come to their aid. IDIOTS!

Debbie · 05-09-2008, 12:15 PM

Before cyclone hit, Burmese delta was stripped of defenses
By Michael Casey The Associated PressPublished: May 9, 2008

BANGKOK: When Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar, it pushed a wall of water through the Irrawaddy Delta, a low-lying, densely populated area that had been stripped of its protective trees.

The delta had lost most of its mangrove forests along the coast to shrimp farms and rice paddies over the past decade. That removed what scientists say is one of nature's best defenses against violent storms.

It was the first time such an intense storm hit the delta, said Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Web site Weather Underground. He called it "one of those once-in-every-500-years kind of things."

When the storm made landfall early Saturday at the mouth of the Irrawaddy River, its battering winds pushed a wall of water twice as high as a human about 40 kilometers, or 25 miles, inland.

Jeff NcNeely, chief scientist for the International Union for Conservation of Nature, said the cyclone's devastation was "an expensive lesson, but it has been one taught repeatedly."

Today in Asia - Pacific

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Food prices drop, but poor still struggle

Experts fear disease outbreaks after Myanmar cyclone

"If you look at the path of the one that hit Myanmar, it hit exactly where it was going to do the most damage, and it's doing the most damage because much of the protective vegetation was cleared," he said. "You just wonder why governments don't get on this."

According to the Mangrove Action Project, a private group in Washington, Burmese researchers found that more than three mangroves in four in the Irrawaddy Delta were destroyed from 1924 to 1999. That echoes a global trend.

"The force of the cyclone could have been greatly lessened and much loss in life and property damage could have been averted if healthy mangrove forests had been conserved along the coastlines of the Irrawaddy Delta," Alfredo Quarto, the conservation group's executive director, said in a statement.

The India Meteorological Department, one of six regional warning centers set up by the World Meteorological Organization, began sending regular advisories about the storm on April 27.

The information appeared in Myanmar's state-run media 48 hours ahead of the storm, but the advisories said nothing about a storm surge.

"Villagers were totally unaware," said one survivor, Khin Khin Myawe, 38. "We knew the cyclone was coming but only because the wind was very strong. No local authorities ever came to us with information about how serious the storm was."

Myanmar, unlike its neighbors Bangladesh and India, has no radar network to help predict the location and height of surges, the World Meteorological Organization said. Bangladesh has a storm protection system that includes warning sirens, evacuation routes and sturdy towers to shelter people, measures that were credited with limiting the death toll last year from Cyclone Sidr to 3,100.

Atiq Rahman, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Advanced Studies, who is a disaster specialist, said that Myanmar's death toll would have been lower if it had such a system.

"Taking some action to move people from affected areas would have dramatically helped reduce the numbers of causalities, absolutely," Rahman said.

Myanmar's junta made no coordinated effort to move people out of low-lying areas, even though information was available about the expected time and location of landfall.

"How is it possible that there was such a great death toll in the 21st century when we have imagery from satellites in real time and there are specialized meteorology centers in all the regions?" asked Olavo Rasquinho of the UN Typhoon Committee Secretariat.

But junta officials and some weather experts said that an evacuation would have been nearly impossible.

"Even if they warned them, they can't go anywhere. Or they are afraid to go anywhere because they are afraid of losing their property," said Mark Lander, a meteorology professor at the University of Guam. "It is debatable how much of a mass exodus you could have had.'

05-07-2008, 18:26 PM	#18 (permalink)
FOG3 Patron Join Date: 05-04-06 Posts: 167	So where's USNS Mercy presently? I suppose the real question is whether they'll redirect from the Phillipines to Burma. Last edited by FOG3 : 05-07-2008 at 18:31 PM.

05-07-2008, 18:31 PM	#19 (permalink)
mweber24 *Military Professional* Join Date: 03-18-08 Location: Colorado Springs Posts: 55 Country:	Not as close at the ESSEX and its group with 1800 Marines... But I don't think the US will go to war for the privledge of feeding people. __________________ The SWO

05-08-2008, 23:54 PM	#23 (permalink)
LetsTalk Patron Join Date: 03-15-08 Location: Naperville, IL Posts: 270 Country:	Greek aid flight departs for Burma Greek aid flight departs for Burma \| The Australian Greek aid flight departs for Burma From correspondents in Athens \| May 09, 2008 A GREEK military plane left for Burma today loaded with humanitarian aid for victims of cyclone Nargis, the Greek airforce said, after the southeast Asian country approved the mission. The Hercules C-130 transport plane was carrying tents, sheets, blankets and medicine donated by the Greek Red Cross and Greece-based non-governmental organisation World Pharmacists, the Greek foreign ministry said. The Burmese military government has appeared reluctant to let in foreign aid after last week's devastating cyclone, with death toll estimates nearing 100,000. Aid was only trickling in despite warnings that specialists were needed to deliver food and water through disaster zones strewn with rotting bodies, and it was unclear if the regime was giving visas to foreign aid staff. The Greek flight will pass from Dubai and Calcutta before arriving in Rangoon, where it has received permission to land, the airforce said. A second flight will likely follow on Saturday, carrying more medicine and bedclothes and a team of Greek doctors, Greek authorities said. "There will be more aid missions with planes and containers," deputy foreign minister Petros Doukas told state television NET at Elefsis airfield outside Athens. "We will do our duty. We are among the first four nations to send aid," he said. Greece will also provide money through the United Nations World Food Programme. Aid groups said the country needs hundreds of planes to cope with the effects of the cyclone, which barrelled into Burma last week, unleashing one of the worst natural disasters in recent memory. They said help was slowly arriving from Thailand, China and India, 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.

05-08-2008, 23:57 PM	#24 (permalink)
LetsTalk Patron Join Date: 03-15-08 Location: Naperville, IL Posts: 270 Country:	First major aid flights head to Myanmar The Sault Star - Ontario, CA First major aid flights head to Myanmar Posted 18 hours ago Myanmar's isolationist military regime gave the go-ahead for the first major airlift of international aid into the country Thursday, while dragging its feet on urgently requested visas by foreign agencies several days after a devastating cyclone. Myanmar's state media said Cyclone Nargis on Saturday has killed at least 22,980 people and left 42,119 missing, but a top U.S. diplomat said Wednesday that more than 100,000 may have perished. Four aircraft loaded with critically needed food from the U.N. World Food Program were set to land at Yangon airport Thursday morning for rapid delivery to the Irrawaddy delta, where last Saturday's cyclone wreaked the greatest damage, the agency said. The flights included 45 metric tons of high-energy biscuits. "It is critical that we reach the hungry and homeless in Myanmar with ready-to-eat food as soon as possible to help them survive this horrific disaster," the UN agency said in a news release from Washington. As international relief began to trickle in, hungry people swarmed the few open shops and fistfights broke out over food and water in the swamped delta. Minutes of a UN aid meeting obtained by The Associated Press, meanwhile, revealed that the military junta's visa restrictions were hampering international relief efforts. Only a handful of UN aid workers had been let into the impoverished Southeast Asian country, which the government has kept isolated for five decades to maintain its iron-fisted control. The U.S. and other countries rushed supplies to the region, but most of it was being held outside Myanmar while awaiting the junta's permission to deliver it. Entire villages in the Irrawaddy delta were still submerged from Saturday's storm, and bloated corpses could be seen stuck in the mangroves. Some survivors stripped clothes off the dead. People wailed as they described the horror of the torrent swept ashore by the cyclone. "I don't know what happened to my wife and young children," said Phan Maung, 55, who held onto a coconut tree until the water level dropped. By then his family was gone. A spokesman for the UN Children's Fund said its staff in Myanmar reported seeing many people huddled in roughly built shelters and children who had lost their parents. "There's widespread devastation. Buildings and health centres are flattened and bloated dead animals are floating around, which is an alarm for spreading disease. These are massive and horrific scenes," Patrick McCormick said at UNICEF offices in New York.

05-09-2008, 01:47 AM	#26 (permalink)
troung A Self Important *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 08-03-03 Posts: 4,118 Country:	Page last updated at 00:52 GMT, Friday, 9 May 2008 01:52 UK E-mail this to a friend Printable version Forcing aid to Burma 'incendiary' BBC NEWS \| UK \| Forcing aid to Burma 'incendiary' Threatening to air-drop aid into Burma without permission is "incendiary", UK International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander has said. He was responding to a call by France for aid to be flown into cyclone-hit areas to counter Burmese leaders' reluctance to allow foreigners in. But Mr Alexander said the "best way forward" was an international "united front" to win access for aid agencies. The Lib Dems said air drops were a "possibility" but were not efficient. Some 23,000 people died as a result of the cyclone and tidal surge which hit Burma at the weekend. Another 1.5 million are at risk, according to the UN. Access 'needed' Mr Alexander told BBC 2's Newsnight that he was more interested in securing access than securing headlines with "incendiary statements". "Our responsibility is to make sure that our sole focus is getting the aid to the people who desperately need it." He said carrying out forced air-drops of supplies would be the wrong action to take. "We believe that the best way forward would be for the junta to provide access, which the whole international community - including Ban Ki-moon [secretary general of the UN] - is requesting. "That's why we've been making direct approaches, but we've also been speaking to other governments, including the government of China, urging them that there should be a united front to say that the access needs to be provided immediately." I don't think we have any legal right to impose it [air drops] - we might have a moral obligation Menzies Campbell Former Liberal Democrat leader Speaking on BBC1's Question Time, Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell also said forced drops would be counterproductive. "The danger of going down this route ... is you could have military action happening which would stop help getting to people," he said. Victims would also be put in a difficult position when accepting foreign aid when their own government had not permitted it, he added. Former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell said air drops were a "possibility" because of the scale of the disaster, but were not the most efficient way of distributing supplies. "I don't think we have any legal right to impose it - we might have a moral obligation. Who is going to be at the receiving end of the air drops? It could be the Burmese army Michael Heseltine Former Conservative deputy prime minister "But I don't believe we could give effect to that moral obligation for this reason - Burma is essentially a state run by the generals with an extremely powerful army. "Any effort to impose humanitarian aid might well be the subject of resistance which would have the effect of damaging yet more of the people of that blighted country." Former Conservative deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine said air drops should only be considered if they could be guaranteed to be effective. "Who is going to be at the receiving end of the air drops? It could be the Burmese army. It could be the very people least affected by the tragedy that is going on." France argues air drops without permission could be allowed under a UN "responsibility to protect" mandate and it wants to raise the crisis in Burma at the UN Security Council. The British government has so far pledged £5m in aid to help with the aftermath of the disaster. Seventeen Britons in Burma are still unaccounted for after the cyclone hit the country on Saturday. __________________ To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

05-07-2008, 18:07 PM	#16 (permalink)
ChrisF202 *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 08-12-03 Location: Long Island, New York, USA Posts: 2,501 Country:	They now say that the death toll may go up to 100,000 This is truly a disaster of biblical proportions, and I suspect the military govt. did not issue warnings which contributed to the death toll

05-07-2008, 18:36 PM	#20 (permalink)
gunnut *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 01-27-06 Location: DPRK, Democratik People's Republik of Kalifornia Posts: 8,577 Country:	Last I heard the Essex group of 3 ships are just outside of Myanmar. Kittyhawk and Nimitz are within a few days if they're needed. It's all up to Myanmar's government to give us permission to save their people.

05-09-2008, 11:12 AM	#28 (permalink)
physicsmonk Regular Join Date: 08-07-07 Location: Delhi Posts: 127 Country:	To add insult to injury we have these global warming missionaries. Cyclone 'is a sign of things to come' \| The Australian

05-09-2008, 11:57 AM	#29 (permalink)
Dreadnought *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 05-12-05 Posts: 4,968 Country:	What the hell kind of government stands by when help is offered and denies access by those far more experienced with this sort of undertaking. Dammit I know I would be calling for heads to roll if I was the people! These poor people are dying left and right and the idiots in charge are afraid of aid workers? I hope their pessimisium will replace all of those lives which will certainly be lost due to pure ignorance. Must be nice to play god with a very poor population. And this country wants to become a superpower? I think someone needs to explain to them that becoming a superpower is more then parading missles, rockets and tanks around on tv when your people are dying due to injury,starvation and disease. It also takes being humble enough to accept help over pride and reassure your people that you are doing everything physically possible to come to their aid. IDIOTS! __________________ Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure. Last edited by Dreadnought : 05-09-2008 at 12:03 PM.

05-09-2008, 12:15 PM	#30 (permalink)
Debbie WAB Cautioner of Poo *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 11-20-06 Location: Wisconsin Posts: 2,894 Country:	Before cyclone hit, Burmese delta was stripped of defenses By Michael Casey The Associated PressPublished: May 9, 2008 BANGKOK: When Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar, it pushed a wall of water through the Irrawaddy Delta, a low-lying, densely populated area that had been stripped of its protective trees. The delta had lost most of its mangrove forests along the coast to shrimp farms and rice paddies over the past decade. That removed what scientists say is one of nature's best defenses against violent storms. It was the first time such an intense storm hit the delta, said Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Web site Weather Underground. He called it "one of those once-in-every-500-years kind of things." When the storm made landfall early Saturday at the mouth of the Irrawaddy River, its battering winds pushed a wall of water twice as high as a human about 40 kilometers, or 25 miles, inland. Jeff NcNeely, chief scientist for the International Union for Conservation of Nature, said the cyclone's devastation was "an expensive lesson, but it has been one taught repeatedly." Today in Asia - Pacific Constitutional referendum still the priority for Myanmar leaders Food prices drop, but poor still struggle Experts fear disease outbreaks after Myanmar cyclone "If you look at the path of the one that hit Myanmar, it hit exactly where it was going to do the most damage, and it's doing the most damage because much of the protective vegetation was cleared," he said. "You just wonder why governments don't get on this." According to the Mangrove Action Project, a private group in Washington, Burmese researchers found that more than three mangroves in four in the Irrawaddy Delta were destroyed from 1924 to 1999. That echoes a global trend. "The force of the cyclone could have been greatly lessened and much loss in life and property damage could have been averted if healthy mangrove forests had been conserved along the coastlines of the Irrawaddy Delta," Alfredo Quarto, the conservation group's executive director, said in a statement. The India Meteorological Department, one of six regional warning centers set up by the World Meteorological Organization, began sending regular advisories about the storm on April 27. The information appeared in Myanmar's state-run media 48 hours ahead of the storm, but the advisories said nothing about a storm surge. "Villagers were totally unaware," said one survivor, Khin Khin Myawe, 38. "We knew the cyclone was coming but only because the wind was very strong. No local authorities ever came to us with information about how serious the storm was." Myanmar, unlike its neighbors Bangladesh and India, has no radar network to help predict the location and height of surges, the World Meteorological Organization said. Bangladesh has a storm protection system that includes warning sirens, evacuation routes and sturdy towers to shelter people, measures that were credited with limiting the death toll last year from Cyclone Sidr to 3,100. Atiq Rahman, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Advanced Studies, who is a disaster specialist, said that Myanmar's death toll would have been lower if it had such a system. "Taking some action to move people from affected areas would have dramatically helped reduce the numbers of causalities, absolutely," Rahman said. Myanmar's junta made no coordinated effort to move people out of low-lying areas, even though information was available about the expected time and location of landfall. "How is it possible that there was such a great death toll in the 21st century when we have imagery from satellites in real time and there are specialized meteorology centers in all the regions?" asked Olavo Rasquinho of the UN Typhoon Committee Secretariat. But junta officials and some weather experts said that an evacuation would have been nearly impossible. "Even if they warned them, they can't go anywhere. Or they are afraid to go anywhere because they are afraid of losing their property," said Mark Lander, a meteorology professor at the University of Guam. "It is debatable how much of a mass exodus you could have had.' __________________ You know I'm here for the party and I aint leavin 'til they throw me out *Here for the Party - Gretchen Wilson*