Tropical Cyclone Kills Thousands in Myanmar

Tropical cyclone 01B began in the north Indian Ocean April 27, as a quickly strengthening tropical storm named Nargis. The next day it strengthened into a full cyclone, with 65 knot winds (75 mph). Nargis had a long track, taking it towards India’s east coast, before taking a tight right turn. This new direction took the storm briefly towards the Calcutta, on the Indian coast. A further swing to the right, the east, finally took it towards the west coast of Myanmar. As 01B got closer to the coast, it became clear that this was going to be a very dangerous storm, taking aim at the highly populated southern coastal areas, near the Mouths of Auyeyarwady. This river delta has extremely low elevations, which is unfortunately where the storm made landfall. Devastating winds, along with pounding high surf, and a large storm surge attacked the local population. The storm’s enormous cloud shield brought very heavy rainfall and crippling floods, which made escape from the affected area virtually impossible. As the cyclone made its way further inland, the winds quickly lessened, but the severe rainfall caused flash flooding and mudslides far into interior sections of Myanmar and all the way into Thailand.

GLIDE number assigned for this event: TC-2008-000057-MMR.

This activation of the International Charter “Space and Major Disasters” is Call No. 203.

The map above shows the track of Tropical Cyclone Nargis across Myanmar’s heavily populated coastal plain and near the national capital, Yangon . The Information Technology for Humanitarian Assistance, Cooperation and Action online map archive has other maps of this and earlier cyclones and floods. (Source: ITHACA)

On Monday morning, U.S. date, the Myanmar Foreign Affairs Ministry estimated that more than 10,000 were killed by Tropical Cyclone Nargis, and that an additional 3,000 were missing and probably also among the dead. Even the most conservative of published estimates, as of Monday (U.S. time), accepted 4,000 deaths and at least 3,000 more missing. A widely circulated Associated Press story said, “If the numbers are accurate, the death toll would be the highest from a natural disaster in southeast Asia since the tsunami of December 2004, which killed 229,866 people as it devastated coastlines in Indonesia, Thailand and other parts of southeast and south Asia. In the wake of the tsunami, an extensive early warning system was established in the Pacific region.” By Tuesday, May 6, in its 9 a.m. news release, Reuters news service was reporting that officials had increased the numbers. Local journalist Nopporn Wong-Anan wrote, “Cyclone Nargis killed at least 15,000 people and left another 30,000 missing when it slammed into the former Burma’s Irrawaddy delta and Yangon on Saturday, officials said.”

Richard Horsey, a spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told the media that hundreds of thousands were left homeless and without clean drinking water along the path of Nargis, which traveled nearly 500 kilometers within Myanmar before crossing, in an easterly direction, into Thailand.

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is usually closed to international organizations and foreign governments, but Mr. Horsey said the United Nations would apparently be permitted to enter the country to assess needs and provide relief. And, on Tuesday morning, the first foreign aid arrived in Myanmar when, according to Reuters, an airplane from Thailand carrying nine metric tons of food and medicines was allowed to enter the stricken area of the country.

At a press briefing in New York, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said, “The U.N. will do whatever it can to provide urgent humanitarian assistance, [but] because of the lack of communications, we are not quite sure what will be the total extent of damages and casualties.”

By the time the storm had passed, people in the Irrawaddy delta, also known as Mouths of Auyeyarwady, discovered that food had become scarce and expensive. According to The Irrawaddy newspaper, a resident of Yangon (also known as Rangoon) told the paper, “The price of an egg is now between 200 and 250 kyat (US 0.20); one cabbage is 2000 kyat ($1.60); one viss (1.6 kilograms) of pork is between 8,000 and 8,500 kyat ($7).” Before the storm, one egg was as low as 50 kyat; one viss of pork was around 4,500 kyat.

In the light of the broader food shortage, or perception of a global food shortage, a wire story released by Reuters News Service India was titled “Myanmar Cyclone Stirs More Rice Supply Fears.” Reuters says that “the cyclone and flooding in Myanmar’s two major rice growing areas have ‘potentially serious effects’ for food supply in two other impoverished countries.” Sri Lanka and Bangladesh depend on Myanmar for a significant portion of their rice, but a shipment of 50,000 metric tons of rice to Sri Lanka has already been postponed while the Myanmar government checks stocks to determine if it has any rice to ship.

It is too soon to know all the damage, the final death toll or the full effect of Nargis on food supplies in Myanmar and neighboring countries.

The world will have to wait for reports from U.N. teams after they are allowed to survey the damage.

After the worst of Nargis passed through Yangon, the former national capital of Myanmar, survivors went out to see what had survived or been destroyed. The boys seen here in Yangon Harbor, discover fishing boats destroyed by Nargis and its 12-foot storm surge. (Image: Agence France-Presse)

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