Cyclone death toll nears 4 000
2008-05-05 14:06
Yangon - Myanmar said on Monday that nearly 4 000 people had been killed in the cyclone that tore into the impoverished and secretive Asian nation at the weekend, and that tens of thousands more could also be dead.
The announcement on state television increased the death toll from Tropical Cyclone Nargis more than ten-fold in the country once known as Burma, which has been under military rule for decades and is one of the poorest on the planet.
The United Nations State had earlier said hundreds of thousands of people had been left homeless when the storm, packing winds of 190km 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," one elderly resident told AFP.
Emergency supplies
Nargis struck Myanmar late on Friday around the mouth of the Ayeyawaddy (Irrawaddy) river, about 220km southwest of Yangon, before hitting the country's economic hub.
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 dramatically higher death toll, announced on Myanmar television - which like all media in the nation, under military rule since 1962, is strictly controlled by the government.
"So far, in Ayeyawaddy and Yangon division, 3 969 were killed, 41 people injured and 2 129 missing," the news bulletin said.
"According to the information that we have as of May 5, there could be tens of thousands dead in Bogolay township and thousands more dead in Labutta township," it said.
The report will come as more bad news for aid organisations battling the devastation on the ground and the intricacies of getting supplies and personnel into a nation which is one of the most isolated in the world.