BANGKOK(AP): 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.
