Yangon - Myanmar's ruling junta upped the official death
toll from Cyclone Nargis to 28,458 Sunday, but horror stories
filtering into the former capital Yangon with the homeless suggest a
much higher number.
Military-controlled MRTV put the death toll at 28,458 with
33,416 missing in a broadcast Sunday night.
But anecdotal reports from survivors of the cyclone, which hit
Myanmar's cental coastal region on May 2 to 3, suggest the United
Nations estimate of 100,000 dead comes closer to the truth.
'Most of the people from my village are dead,' said Soe Thu, 23,
from the salt-making village of Ngaputaw, in the Irrawaddy delta.
Soe Thu, who recently arrived in Yangon with his father and two
brothers, said he had lost his mother to Cyclone Nargis which hit his
town on May 2.
His family was among the lucky.
'There were about 12,000 houses in Ngaputaw, with a population
about 50,000, most of us working at the Hnget Kyun salt production
area,' Soe Thu told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
'Altogether over 40,000 died. Most of dead were women and
children working in the salt fields,' he said.
Like many other survivors in the Irrawaddy delta, Soe Thu claimed
to have known about the approaching cyclone but claimed the
government warning said it was packing winds of only 40 to 50 miles
per hour.
He and the survivors fled to Yangon on Thursday after failing to
receive sufficient assistance from the government.
'They promise a lot but they give little,' he said.
The Myanmar junta has come under a barrage of international
criticism for failing to facilitate a global disaster relief
programme for the country by speeding up aid deliveries and granting
visas to foreign aid experts.
With the real casualty figures of the calamity still unknown,
disaster experts have warned that it could increase dramatically in
the coming weeks if the aid programme is not accelerated.
'With the likelihood of 100,000 or more killed in the cyclone
there are all the factors for a public health catastrophe which could
multiply that death toll by up to 15 times in the coming period,'
said Oxfam's Regional Director for East Asia, Sarah Ireland.
roneidaMay 11th, 2008 - 17:57:35
Why is it that when horrible disasters like this strike, no one makes the connection between too many people, forced by poverty to live in areas that are not fit for human habitation, and the huge number of deathe. Is it possible that we should limit population growth to prevent such tragedies.??? These are questions that no one wants to ask. Most of the large problems on Earth are caused by too many people.
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