This is so much worse than initially reported...
it's so sad...
Death toll from Myanmar cyclone rises to 22,500 - International Herald Tribune
The death toll from a powerful cyclone that struck Myanmar over the weekend rose to
22,500 on Tuesday, and foreign governments and aid organizations began mobilizing for a major relief operation.
The number was the latest in a steadily escalating official toll since Cyclone Nargis struck early Saturday, devastating much of the fertile Irrawaddy Delta and the nation's major city, Yangon. At a news conference in Yangon, the minister for relief and resettlement, Maung Maung Swe, said
41,000 people were still missing from the cyclone, which triggered a surge of water inland from the sea.
"More deaths were caused by the tidal wave than the storm itself," the minister said, in the first official description of the destruction.
"The wave was up to 12 feet high," or 3.6 meters, "and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages. They did not have anywhere to flee."
A spokesman for the United Nations World Food Program said that as many as one million people might have lost their homes and that some villages had been almost totally destroyed.
Shaken by the scope of the disaster, the government said it would delay, in hard-hit areas, a vote on a new constitution that is meant to legitimize the military's grip on power.
The constitutional referendum was still to go ahead on May 10 in other parts of the country but would be delayed until May 24 in the worst affected regions, where more than one-third of the population live.
The postponement of the referendum, which has been a centerpiece of government policy, and an appeal to foreign countries for disaster relief assistance were difficult concessions from an insular military junta that portrays itself as all-powerful and self-sufficient, analysts said.
"It suggests that they realize that they've got a real problem on their hands and have limited capacity to deal with this," said a Western diplomat in Yangon, speaking on condition of anonymity because of his embassy's policy.
At a news conference, Major General Kyaw Hsan, the information minister, acknowledged the difficulties. "The task is very wide and extensive, and the government needs the cooperation of the people and well-wishers from at home and abroad," he said.
In an effort to stem profiteering as prices rose for food, fuel and building materials, he said, "We are coordinating and cooperating with businessmen. We appeal to entrepreneurs and businessmen not to cash in on the disaster."
Residents reached by telephone in Yangon described a city in tatters, with fallen trees, a lack of power and water and, in the poorer outskirts, badly damaged homes. Tank trucks were selling water from Inya Lake in the center of the city, they said.
The high winds blew roofs off cages at the zoo, one person said, and a baboon or gibbon was spotted Monday sitting on top of a giant plastic ruby in the middle of a traffic circle near Shwedagon Pagoda.
"He refused to get down," the resident said, speaking anonymously because of a government ban on news that is not authorized by the state.
State radio announced that the referendum on the new constitution would be delayed for two weeks in areas badly hit by the storm, including the Irrawaddy Delta and much of Yangon. Those areas are centers of repressed opposition to the junta and, now, potentially centers of anger over what is described by both local residents and foreign diplomats as an ineffectual government response to the cyclone.
Residents have described a mood of anger and a grim resignation to the junta's power since the military fired into crowds last September to quell a huge, nonviolent pro-democracy uprising led by Buddhist monks. At least 31 people, possibly many more, were killed, and thousands were detained, including a large number of monks.
There were several accounts over the weekend of monks leaving their monasteries to help clear away storm wreckage, even as the military offered little visible help to residents.
International aid groups were assessing Myanmar's needs and preparing shipments of food and materials that included roofing, plastic tarpaulins, mosquito nets, water purifying tablets and medications to prevent outbreaks of cholera and malaria.
"We hope to fly in more assistance within the next 48 hours," the World Food Program spokesman, Paul Risley, said in Bangkok. "The challenge will be getting to the affected areas with road blockages everywhere."
Mac Pieczowsky, who heads the Yangon office of the International Organization for Migration, said in a statement, "More or less all the land lines are down, and it's extremely difficult to get information from cyclone-affected areas."
"But from the reports we are getting, entire villages have been flattened, and the final death toll may be huge," he added.
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