Devastation in Burma | Storm, Cyclone, Burma, Nargis, Have

Devastation in Burma

Before and after Cyclone Nargis, NASA images

On May 2 Cyclone Nargis swept out of the Bay of Bengal and made landfall on the low lying Irawaddy delta region of Burma with peak winds of 135 mph. The storm devastated life and property. As with Hurricane Katrina the worst destruction was wrought by the storm surge. The images to the right (courtesy of Wikimedia and NASA) show the delta region before and after the cyclone. Note how much of the land is covered by water in the bottom image. Here's a sense of what the storm was like on the ground:

"Kwagyi is a village on a river island which is so low and exposed that during the twelve hours of Cyclone Nargis’s spate, it ceased to be an island at all. The waters were six and a half feet high; they covered everything except the buildings, and many of those had been blown away... Myint Swa the boatman climbed a palm tree and hung on for dear life. His wife and eight children cowered in the boat and rode out the boiling waters." Kenneth Denby in Pyapon, Burma for Timesonline UK.

Over 1.5 million people are reported to have been severely affected by the storm. The death toll may reach 100,000+. Help has been offered by world agencies. Unfortunately the prideful, corrupt and worthless dictators of Burma have only recently begun to accept it.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on Nargis

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