Cyclone Nargis 2008

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[edit] Cyclone Nargis 2008

[edit] Status

  • With the death toll continuing the rise, Nargis looks set to be the worst storm to hit Asia since 1991 when 143,000 were killed in Bangladesh.
  • Myanmar state TV reports the official toll as 28,458 dead, with 33,416 missing BBC News 11 May 2008. Unofficial estimates by aid agencies 100,000+ dead, with more than 1 million homeless.
  • 12 May 2008: State television has put the death toll at 31,938 with 29,770 people missing. The United Nations raised its estimate Monday to between 62,000 and 100,000 dead.
  • Burma’s Department of Meteorology and Hydrology reports another severe storm is gathering in the Bay of Bengal. This will bring occasional tropical rain showers through next Wednesday and heavy rainfall around Thursday or Friday next week. … “The agency said southwesterly winds may then hit the low-lying areas devastated by Cyclone Nargis, which killed up to 200,000 people and left as many as 1.5 million in need of housing, food and clean water.” Another storm front approaches Burma, The Irrawaddy, 10 May 2008.

[edit] Background

  • Cyclone Nargis was a category three storm when it hit Myanmar's densely-populated Irrawaddy Delta region late on Friday 2 May 2008 - the same strength as Hurricane Katrina when it struck the US city of New Orleans in 2005.
  • Winds peaking at more than 200 kph were followed by a huge tidal surge that swept through the vulnerable low-lying delta towns, wiping out entire communities.
  • The few aerial pictures coming in from the region hint at the devastation, but the full impact is still being assessed. Al Jazeera English, Rush to aid cyclone survivors, 6 May 2008.
  • Latest news reports, death toll and casualty statistics by local reporters on the ground in Myanmar (Burma) - Irrawaddy news magazine

[edit] Photos & Maps

[edit] First hand Reports

  • Baptist Press. Five days after a cyclone's widespread devastation in Myanmar, the first two planeloads of United Nations relief supplies landed in the capital, Yangon, April 8. Observers fear the death toll could rise from 23,000 to more than 100,000 because safe supplies of drinking water and food are not available to large numbers of people. Visas for relief workers, however, still have not been approved by the country's military government. A Southern Baptist relief effort is focusing on establishing reliable communications with partners in Myanmar, said Jeff Palmer, executive director of Baptist Global Response, a Southern Baptist international relief and development organization. Cyclone Nargis wiped out much of Myanmar's communications networks and has made it difficult even for the country's own relief system to ascertain the extent of the damage. In addition to food and clean water, aid organizations expect that the most urgent needs will include plastic sheeting, water purification tablets, mosquito nets and emergency health kits. The death toll stands at 22,980, with another 42,119 people missing, according to Myanmar's state media. Up to 1 million people are homeless. Relief organizations are concerned about outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and illnesses such as diarrhea that often occur in the wake of natural disasters because of dirty water and poor sanitation. "Our priority is now to establish reliable communication with partners in Myanmar," Palmer said. "We hope to have some things in place communications-wise in a few days. From all our sources, we understand other organizations are also experiencing difficulty in responding."
  • "Things are pretty dire here. I’ve never been in anything like this before, the devastation is just so massive. The storm was unbelievable, lasting 10 hours. The delta, where the storm first landed, is just flattened. Stories are still coming in but they are bad. Last night an NGO rep stopped by, he just got in town from being in one of the worst places down there. He said the place is just totaled - bodies lying everywhere, 40,000 people missing just from the one island where has was. They lived by bunkering down among rice bags from the last harvest (clever). Hakan thinks the death toll will surpass 100,000." 9 May 2008. note on the web
  • Yangon has been totally devastated. Most of the people have never experienced this kind of storm in their lives. I tried to call to my family and all the people I know this whole day and it did not work as all the phone lines are damaged.The electric poles are flattened, trees are uprooted from the ground. Zinc sheets from the roofs are in the street. People could not go out even no dog. I read this news from http://www.mizzima.com. You may read some news there. I have been here in Bangkok for a week to attend conference. My husband and the two children and the rest of the family are in Yangon. My husband is joining me to attend conference this evening. But due to this situation I am not sure he could make it. Last night I woke up trembling. I have that kind of awakening whenever something goes wrong. I prayed to God to protect my family, colleagues and my people. Only this morning I came to know what happen when receiving email from a friend from Singapore that Yangon where I live has been damaged by the cyclone and it has been totally devastated.
Lift our people in your prayer to God. As I write this letter my heart is so grieved. May your prayers be answered and our people find relief in wholistic ways.
Written by Charity
  • A local journalist reports her personal experience from May 2 to May 8. A Cyclone Diary by Kyi Wai, Rangoon
  • Frustration is mounting over Myanmar's generally feeble response to one of its worst disasters in memory and particularly the delays in giving visas to aid workers and landing rights for relief flights. Survivors have been mostly fending for themselves in the swampy delta.
  • While foreign aid groups wait to deliver disaster relief, the generals who run Myanmar have a priority of their own: a constitutional referendum scheduled for Saturday. The constitution is central to the generals' political survival.

Constitutional referendum still the priority for Myanmar leaders, IHT, 9 May 2008.

  • Political issues. The military junta has misled Myanmar to be one of the world's least developed countries, and has earned a reputation for poor macro-economic management, let alone disaster-management. Public funds to handle the crisis are severely limited, sources said. Cyclone Nargis has shattered the isolated country at a sensitive time politically as the ruling military junta is preparing to hold a national referendum Saturday to win the approval of a constitution that would essentially cement the military's dominance in future elected governments. Critics of the referendum and the military-drafted constitution have called on the government to postpone the vote to better cope with the humanitarian challenge that it faces in the coming weeks. While insisting it would go ahead with the referendum, the government announced on Tuesday that it would allow the voting to be postponed until May 24 in 47 of the hardest-hit township in Irrawaddy and Yangon.
  • Fears of outbreaks fueled by mosquitoes, dirty water and poor sanitation were among the World Health Organization's biggest concerns after a devastating cyclone hit Myanmar, home to one of the world's worst health systems.
    • WHO was waiting for permission from the country's ruling junta to send in medical teams but demolished infrastructure would likely hamper early efforts.
    • "The communications are broken down and the roads are not operational," she said. "But the officers are on the ground and are ready for rapid assessment, surveillance and mobilization."
    • Teams will work to prevent mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, as well as diarrhea and other outbreaks that can spread quickly amid a lack of clean water and sanitation.
    • Major concerns also include respiratory illnesses among children forced to sleep outside and injuries suffered during the storm, Gupta-Smith said.
  • One in five children who survived in the areas hit by Cyclone Nargis is suffering from diarrhea, according to a UNICEF official in Rangoon. The number could still rise.
  • Cyclone Survivors Now Racked by Disease, The Irrawaddy, 9 May 2008.
  • Mangrove destruction partly to blame for Myanmar toll: ASEAN chief The destruction of mangrove forests that served as a buffer from the sea is partly to blame for the massive death toll from a cyclone in Myanmar, the head of the ASEAN regional bloc said Tuesday. "Why the impact is so severe is because of the increase of the population," said Surin Pitsuwan, secretary general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to which military-ruled Myanmar belongs. This has led to an "encroachment into the mangrove forests which used to serve as buffer between the rising tide, between big waves and storms and the residential area," he said in a speech in Singapore. "All those lands have been destroyed. Human beings are now direct victims of such natural forces."
  • Removal of Myanmar's mangrove forest ..., IHT, 9 May 2008.
  • As Burma deals with the pain of one of the greatest humanitarian disasters in recent history, one face is conspicuous by its absence — that of commander in chief of the Burmese armed forces and chairman of the ruling SPDC, Snr-Gen Than Shwe. Than Shwe and his close aides, generals Maung Aye and Thura Shwe Mann, have all but disappeared since Cyclone Nargis hit Burma.

Thousands Dead; Than Shwe in Hiding, The Irrawaddy, 8 May 2008

  • In the town of Pyinsalu, only 400 people survived from a population of 4,000. The town was also hit by the tsunami of 26 December 2004, but in that disaster only a few people in the town died. Ko Soe Kyaw Kyaw, a World Vision area development manager, who conducted the informal assessment of the area, said: The number of orphans would be significant in Latputa, because many children go there for schooling, leaving their families in nearby villages, some of which have totally vanished.”
  • Food issues. 9 May 2008: Myanmar's food basket bore the brunt of last week's cyclone and supplies in the nation are now threatened, the United Nations said as aid agencies told the junta to stop delaying emergency relief deliveries. The five worst-affected states produce most of the fish, rice and pork for the nation's 47.8 million people, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization said.

Burma’s ‘Rice Basket’ Knocked out, say Experts

[edit] Political issues around aid

  • Myanmar will accept foreign aid but not foreign aid workers, the foreign ministry said on Friday (9. Mai 2008), after a disaster rescue team from Qatar that arrived in Yangon on an aid flight was turned back. "Myanmar is not in a position to receive rescue and information teams from foreign countries at the moment," said a foreign ministry statement carried in the official Myanma Ahlin newspaper "But at present Myanmar is giving priority to receiving relief aid and distributing them to the storm-hit regions with its own resources," the statement said. The Qatar plane was one of 12 international relief flights that landed in the former capital on Thursday, it said.
  • The United States of America is "outraged" by Myanmar's delays in allowing relief workers and aid shipments into the cyclone-devastated country, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations said on Thursday. "We're outraged by the slowness of the response of the government of Burma (Myanmar) to welcome and accept assistance," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters. "It's clear that the government's ability to deal with the situation, which is catastrophic, is limited." In Washington, officials said the United States was ready to make a significant contribution in aid but the Myanmar government needed to allow an international relief effort, directed by experienced international coordinators, to help victims and to keep the tragedy from getting worse. "Some assistance is starting to get in, but it is a trickle, it is not enough. It needs to have a greater size and a greater speed," said Henrietta Fore, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. "So we are urging the Burmese regime to grant full access to the affected areas, to international humanitarian relief teams and non-governmental organizations, so they can help and provide assistance to those that are most in need," she told reporters. "There are many international tragedies and this one needs to be contained at this time."
  • China and Indonesia on Thursday rejected France's idea of having the Security Council ratchet up the pressure on cyclone-devastated Myanmar to grant full access to foreign aid workers. France has suggested invoking a U.N. "responsibility to protect" in the reclusive Southeast Asian state to deliver aid without the government's approval, but its bid to make the U.N. Security Council take a stand was rebuffed on Wednesday by China, Vietnam, South Africa and Russia. U.N. envoys of Indonesia and China spoke against politicizing the issue and dismissed reporters' suggestions that Myanmar was stonewalling international aid workers, including U.N. officials, by not issuing visas.
  • United Nation 12 May 2008, Mr. Ban expressed “deep concern” and “immense frustration” with what he called the unacceptably slow response to this grave humanitarian crisis. In unusually blunt language for a United Nations leader, Mr. Ban said: “This is not about politics; it is about saving peoples lives. There is absolutely no more time to lose.”
  • European Union 13 May 2008, In Brussels, the foreign policy chief of the European Union, Javier Solana, said that if the government continued to bar large-scale aid, outside donors should find a way to deliver it anyway. "We have to use all the means to help those people," he said. "The United Nations charter opens some avenues if things cannot be resolved in order to get the humanitarian aid” to arrive.

[edit] Prayer

The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases. Proverbs 21:1

Surely the arm of the LORD is not to short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. Isaiah 58:10

  • PRAY :
    • For the victims of Cyclone Nargis
    • that aid will reach the survivors soon.
    • for effective relief response so that all those affected will receive food, clean drinking water, shelter, and access to medical care.
    • that God guides the leaders in relief efforts, so there will be good cooperation and coordination between the government, NGOs and other agencies.
    • for the safety of relief workers and their families.
    • for the GOD of comfort to bring them peace and hope through these dark days.
    • for the churches and Christians in Myanmar to be a SHINING LIGHT to the nation.
    • for some of the Christians who have lost loved ones as well, that in their sorrow, they will experience and be able to share His comfort.
    • for survivors who are suffering. Pray for humanitarian groups to be able to deliver relief supplies to them in a timely manner.
    • that God will work through the affliction caused by Cyclone Nargis to deliver Myanmar from its affliction of violent, repressive and totalitarian rule.
    • that God will open the ears of multitudes of Burmese to the Gospel.
    • for all Burmese pastors, Christian leaders, teachers and Christians who are fleeing or suffering in terror. Pray for the Holy Spirit to fill the leaders with the wisdom, faith, grace and strength.
    • that people may have peace and receive help and assistance. Churches may take the initiative to help the people. Even Christians may be helped in this kind of situation.
    • that the government may not be stubborned to receive help from international. They may allow churches to help the people in need. (I am very, very sad that we could not help our people. Our government never wants outside people know that there is natural disaster in Myanmar. Although they themselves could not help the people they never allow Christian groups or any association to give assistance to people whenever disasters come, written by Charity).
    • May the Lord show Himself and His compassion and glory to the people who reject Him and who need Him desperately.
    • That more helpers can come in, there is still much suffering and many people have not yet received some kind of help.
  • Burma: Pray for Openness and Liberty
  • World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission, Wed 07 May 2008 Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin, No. 477

[edit] Agencies at Work

[edit] Pioneers of church planting in Myanmar

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