YANGON, 6 May 2008 — Myanmar said yesterday that more than 10,000 people had been killed in the cyclone that tore into the Southeast Asian nation at the weekend, and tens of thousands more may also have died.
Faced with the devastation, Foreign Minister Nyan Win said his country would welcome international aid, as neighboring countries and the United Nations said they were ready to assist in the recovery.
State television showed images of entire communities that had flooded since tropical cyclone Nargis struck late Friday. Earlier, state media said tens of thousands of people may have been killed in the township of Bogalay alone.
“We will welcome help ... from other countries, because our people are in difficulty,” Nyan Win said.
The United Nations said hundreds of thousands of people had been left homeless when the storm, packing winds of 190 km per hour, ripped through the countryside, destroying entire villages in its fury.
Thousands of buildings were flattened as the furious cyclone also ripped power lines to shreds, uprooted trees that blocked key roads and disrupted water supplies in the main city and former capital, Yangon.
“I haven’t seen anything like this in my whole life,” said one elderly resident.
Nargis struck Myanmar late Friday around the mouth of the Ayeyawaddy (Irrawaddy) River, about 220 km southwest of Yangon, before hitting the country’s economic hub.
In addition to the devastation wrought by the storm, a prison watchdog said that security forces killed 36 people when they opened fire to quell a riot that broke out after the winds ripped off the roof of the nation’s most notorious jail.
As aid agencies struggled to rush emergency supplies of food and water into the country, the ruling junta vowed to press ahead with a referendum this weekend on a new constitution.
But that was before the release of the dramatic death toll, announced on Myanmar television — which like all media in the nation, under military rule since 1962, is strictly controlled by the government.
The announcement came as aid organizations were battling the devastation on the ground and the difficulties of getting supplies and personnel into one of the world’s most isolated nations.
Well before the latest figures emerged, the International Federation of the Red Cross said in a preliminary estimate that several villages had been destroyed — wiped out by one of the worst storms here in memory.
The winds combined with a sea surge in the Bay of Bengal, wreaking devastation in a country where the military normally imposes tough restrictions on the activities of aid agencies.
Richard Horsey, a UN official in neighboring Thailand, said that several hundred thousand people had been left homeless and without drinking water across a broad swath of the country. “If we look at the emergency needs for shelter and drinking water, there are several hundred thousand people who will need urgent assistance,” he said.
The UN said it was ready to send emergency aid to Myanmar, and was considering making an urgent appeal.
