Bodies piling up in Myanmar

2008-05-07 09:27

Bangkok - Millions of people in Myanmar have been left homeless by a devastating cyclone and piles of bodies have begun rotting in the disaster zone, a director of aid agency Save the Children said on Wednesday.

Cyclone Nargis which slammed in the southern coast on Saturday has left at least 22 000 people dead and another 41 000 missing by the official count, but the toll is expected to rise.

"There are 41 000 people missing but most people assume most of those 41 000 missing are dead," said Andrew Kirkwood, Myanmar country director for Save the Children, one of the few aid agencies allowed to operate there.

"And clearly there are millions of homeless, but how many millions we don't know," he said by telephone from Yangon.

Kirkwood said the organisation's staff had gathered harrowing eyewitness accounts from the worst-hit area of the Irrawaddy Delta region, a low-lying agricultural region which was inundated by a huge storm surge.

"One team came across thousands of people killed in one township, with piles of rotting bodies lying on the ground as the water had receded," he told AFP.

He said there were "really worrying" reports that people were dying in the town of Pyinkaya in the southwest of the delta, home to 150 000 people, which had had no supplies of food or clean water since the storm hit.

"Assistance hasn't reached them yet and they are dying, completely isolated," he said.

Save the Children said it is sending out trucks from the main city of Yangon laden with food, tarpaulins, water treatment tablets, salt and sugar in the hope that they can reach the most needy.

The repressive Myanmar authorities have assured the charity it can operate freely across the country, but like other foreign aid experts, its staff based in Thailand continue to await visas to enter the country.

Kirkwood said aid workers from abroad would soon be needed to operate what should be a massive relief effort.

"Sustaining the operation is going to be a problem if we don't get reinforcements," he told AFP.

- AFP