New Delhi: The death toll from Cyclone Nargis that battered Myanmar last weekend rose above 22,000 on Tuesday as the international community prepared to rush in aid, state radio reported.
A news broadcast on government-run radio said that 22,464 people have now been confirmed dead from Cyclone Nargis, which tore through the country's rice bowl and biggest city of Yangon early on Saturday. The broadcast added that thousands more are missing.
Relief efforts for the stricken area, mostly in the low-lying Irrawaddy River delta, have been difficult, in large part because of the destruction of roads and communications outlets by the storm.
Food shortages are being reported from different areas and Yangon is in the grip of a severe water crisis with many being forced to turn to the only source of water in the city – the Royal Lake.
“There is no water in Yangon city, the storm arrived and the lights went out, so there is no water,” a resident of the city said.
Authorities said the water scarcity is because the city’s electric supply has been snapped. Government-supplied water and most private tubewells have also stopped operating in the city.
“Both electricity and water supply have been cut-off. We have been without it for three days,” another resident complained.
Survivors are not only thirsty but angry with the junta for its sluggish response to the crisis. Now the locals have taken it upon themselves to clean up the mess left behind by Nargis. “We repaired our roof and we are cutting trees near our monastery,” a monk said.
The UN World Food Program, which was preparing to fly in food supplies, offered a grim assessment of the destruction – up to a million people possibly homeless, some villages almost totally destroyed and vast rice-growing areas wiped out.
Based on a satellite map made available by the UN, the storm's damage was concentrated over about a 11,600-square-mile (30,000-square-kilometer) area along the Andaman Sea and Gulf of Martaban coastlines, which is less than 5 per cent of the country.
But the affected region is home to nearly a quarter of Myanmar's 57 million people.
Aid agencies reported their assessment teams had reached some areas of the largely isolated region but said getting in supplies and large numbers of aid workers would be difficult.
The country's ruling military junta, which has spurned the international community for decades, urgently appealed for foreign aid at a meeting on Monday among Nyan Win and diplomats in Yangon.
“Instead of waiting for figures on casualties and damage, it will be practical to send humanitarian aid to victims as soon as possible,” Relief and Resettlement Minister Major General Maung Maung Swe told a press conference on Tuesday.
The appeal came less than a week ahead of the referendum on a military-backed constitution that the junta hoped would go smoothly in its favour, despite opposition from the country's feisty pro-democracy movement. However, the disaster could stir the already tense political situation.
As international aid begins to pour in, soldiers and police appear more the exception than the rule, but the official media has given prominence to the military response prompting many to view footage of residents being helped as nothing but state propaganda.
US First Lady Laura Bush — who had accused the Myanmar military regime of failing to warn its citizens in time about the approaching cyclone — has now said India would be able to help Yangon in a much better way than the United States.
India on its part has stepped up aid.
"Two Indian Navy ships will reach Yangon early on Wednesday morning. They are carrying essential relief and medical supplies. In addition, India is also sending two Air Force planes carrying tentage and medicines. They too will reach Yangon on Wednesday," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson, Navtej Sarna said.
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