Cyclone kills 4 in Myanmar
2008-05-04 08:57
Yangon - Myanmar's military government
declared disaster areas in five states on Sunday after a large
tropical cyclone pounded the Irrawaddy delta region and killed
at least four people in Yangon, state newspapers said.
Cyclone Nargis, which was packing 190km/h per
hour winds when it hit on Saturday, left the streets of the
former Burma's main city littered with debris from fallen trees
and battered buildings.
Many roofs had been ripped off even sturdy buildings,
suggesting damage would be severe in the shanty towns that sit
on the outskirts of the sprawling river delta city of 5 million
people.
"I have never seen anything like it," one retired
government worker told Reuters. "It reminded me of when
Hurricane Katrina hit the United States."
Although the sun was shining by Sunday morning, the former
capital was without power and water.
An Electricity Board official said it was impossible to
know when services - hit-and-miss at the best of times in one
of Asia's poorest countries - would be restored.
"It is very hard to say when we can resume supply. We still
have to clear the mess," the official, who did not want to be
named, said.
In some towns in the Irrawaddy delta, where the massive
cyclone landed on Friday night having gathered steam in the
tropical waters of the Bay of Bengal, more than half of
buildings had been damaged or collapsed, official newspapers
said.
The death toll - so far just four people in Yangon - is
expected to climb as authorities slowly make contact with
outlying towns and villages along the coast, where weather
forecasters had predicted a storm surge of up to 3.5m.
Official media said four vessels sank in Yangon harbour.
It remains to be seen what impact the storm will have on a
referendum on an army-drafted constitution scheduled for May
10.
The charter is part of a "roadmap to democracy" meant to
culminate in multiparty elections in 2010 and end nearly five
decades of military rule. Critics say it gives the army too
much control.
An official at Yangon International Airport said all
incoming flights had been diverted to the second city of
Mandalay, in the middle of the southeast Asian nation, and all
departures from Yangon had been cancelled.