Cyclone Nargis hits Burma
[Updated on May 8]
Satellite images from US space agency NASA showed virtually the entire coastal plain of the country, one of the poorest nations on the planet, under water. The death toll could reach 63,000.
Most killed by a 12ft tidal wave
From The Times, UK: Most of the victims of the Burma cyclone were overwhelmed by a 12ft moving wall of water that bore down on their lowlying villages at the mouth of the Irrawaddy river delta.
In a rare press conference, members of the Burmese junta today gave the most detailed description to date of the disaster that killed at least 22,000 people at the weekend, and left a further 41,000 missing, according to Burmese state radio.
Out of tragedy, light may shine on Burma
From The Telegraph, UK: They are cruel, power hungry and dangerously irrational - beyond that, little can be said for certain about Burma’s ruling generals. Reading them is less like Kremlinology, more like Byzantine studies.
They may regard the cyclone which devastated their country on Friday night as an ill omen from the spirit world. Certainly, the timing - a week before the first national vote in 18 years - looks inauspicious, and they are known to consult astrologers and mystics on all aspects of political life.
United Nations envoy Paul Risley says the death toll in Burma could cross 100,000. But the Junta is still not welcoming of aid. The Associated Press has that story (carried in the Houston Chronicle)
Myanmar’s isolationist regime blocked United Nations efforts today to airlift urgently needed high-energy biscuits to survivors of a cyclone that may have killed more than 100,000 people, U.N. officials said.
Paul Risley, a spokesman of the U.N’s World Food Program in Bangkok, said three flights were waiting to take off from Dubai, Dhaka and Thailand with 50 tons of biscuits. A fourth shipment aboard a scheduled Thai Airways cargo flight was likely to bring some biscuits later today.
He told The Associated Press that the WFP was in “constant touch” with the military junta to obtain the flight clearance for the first major airlift of international aid, but there has been no word from officials.
