Cyclone death toll hits 22 000
2008-05-06 14:56
Yangon - More than 22 000 people were killed in Myanmar's devastating cyclone, the government said on Tuesday, with thousands more feared dead after the storm left rice fields littered with corpses.
Tens of thousands are still missing four days after the storm slammed into the southern coast, the government said late on Tuesday as it announced the sharply increased death toll on state television.
Aid workers were racing to deliver food and water to the worst-hit Irrawaddy delta region, which was submerged by floodwaters, leaving scenes of utter devastation and desperate homeless survivors running low on food and water.
Aid workers need visas
But with the clock ticking four days after the storm hit, Myanmar's reclusive military rulers insisted foreign aid experts would still have to negotiate with the government to be allowed into the isolated nation.
There were also fears that the death toll could rise further, with state media giving no details of casualties in three of the regions affected by the cyclone.
"According to the information as of 12 noon today, 21 793 people were killed and 40 695 were missing in Irrawaddy division, while 671 were killed, 670 were injured and 359 people were missing in Yangon division," state television said late on Tuesday.
The government also said it would proceed this weekend with a constitutional referendum as part of its slow-moving "road map" to democracy, except in the areas hardest hit by the disaster.
Massive tidal wave
In its first news conference since tropical cyclone Nargis barrelled into the Irrawaddy river delta early on Saturday, the government said many people died from a 3.5-metre tidal wave that slammed into the area.
Social Welfare Minister Maung Maung Swe told reporters that most of the town of Bogalay, one of the delta areas that bore the brunt of the storm's force, had simply been washed away.
"Ninety-five percent of the houses in Bogalay were destroyed," he said. "Many people were killed in a 12-foot tidal wave."
Satellite images from US space agency Nasa showed virtually the entire coastal plain of the country, once known as Burma and now one of the poorest nations on the planet, under water.
Christian relief organisation World Vision, one of the few international agencies allowed to work inside Myanmar, said its teams had flown over the most affected regions and witnessed horrific scenes on the ground below.
"They saw the dead bodies from the helicopters, so it's quite overwhelming," Kyi Minn, an adviser to World Vision's office in Myanmar's main city of Yangon, told AFP in Thailand by telephone.
"The impact of the disaster could be worse than the (2004 Asian) tsunami because it is compounded by the limited availability of resources on top of the transport constraints," he said.
- AFP