Cyclone devastates Myanmar

2008-05-05 07:21

Yangon - Residents of Myanmar's biggest city lit candles on Monday, lined up to buy water and hacked their way through trees felled in a cyclone that killed more than 350 people, destroyed thousands of homes and caused widespread power cuts.

Older citizens said they had never seen Yangon, a city of some 6.5 million, so devastated in their lifetimes.

Despite the havoc wreaked by tropical cyclone Nargis across wide swaths of the southeast Asian country on Saturday, the government indicated that a referendum on the country's draft constitution would proceed as planned on May 10.

"It's only a few days left before the coming referendum and people are eager to cast their vote," the state-owned newspaper Myanma Ahlin said on Monday.

Pro-democracy groups in the country and many international critics have branded the constitution as merely a tool for the military's continued grip on power.

Military doing little to help victims

Should the junta be seen as failing disaster victims, voters who already blame the regime for ruining the economy and squashing democracy could take out their frustrations at the ballot box.

Some in Yangon complained that the 400 000-strong military was doing little to help victims after Saturday's storm, only clearing streets where the ruling elite resided but leaving residents to cope on their own in most other areas.

"Where are all those uniformed people who are always ready to beat civilians?" a trishaw driver, who refused to be identified for fear of retribution, said Sunday. "They should come out in full force and help clean up the areas and restore electricity."

Residents, as well as Buddhist monks from the city's many monasteries, banded together on Monday, wielding axes and knives to clear roads of tree trunks and branches torn off by the cyclone's 190kph winds.

Electricity, telephones out

With the city's already unstable electricity supply virtually non-functional, citizens lined up to buy candles, which doubled in price, as well as water since a lack of electricity-driven pumps left most households dry. Some walked to the city's lakes to wash.

Hotels and richer families were using private generators but only sparingly, given the soaring price of fuel.

Public transport was almost at a standstill although airlines announced that Yangon's international airport had reopened for foreign and domestic flights on Monday.

Most telephone landlines, mobile phones and Internet connections were down.

With the city plunged into almost total darkness overnight, security concerns mounted, and many shops sold their goods through partially opened doors or iron grills.

At least 351 people were killed, including 162 who lived on Haing Gyi island off the country's southwest coast, military-run Myaddy television station reported. Many of the others died in the low-lying Irrawaddy delta.

- AP