[News Source: AFP,6Nov, 2008]
Dhaka, (AFP)-A simmering dispute between Bangladesh and neighbouring Myanmar in a hydrocarbon-rich stretch of the Bay of Bengal has highlighted Dhaka's desperate plight over dwindling gas supplies, say analysts.
Bangladesh this week took the unusual step of deploying four naval ships to the disputed waters -- claimed by each nation as their own -- after its southeastern neighbour began gas exploration activities there.
Dhaka says it will take "all possible measures" to protect the zone, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Bangladesh's Saint Martin Island.
The military-backed interim government has meanwhile sought to resolve the dispute diplomatically, dispatching its foreign secretary to Myanmar to hold crisis talks.
A senior official from Myanmar's military government said they were open to discussions, but insisted that oil and gas companies were operating inside their territory and far away from the disputed sea boundary.
Myanmar also insisted that the United States was involved and stirring up trouble -- an accusation denied by Washington.
Regardless of what sparked the face-off, experts say Bangladesh has taken an unusually strong stance, especially towards a country it has generally enjoyed friendly relations with.
"There's a chance we might find gas in the Bay of Bengal. India and Myanmar have already discovered gas there so it's crucial for Bangladesh to assert its territory. A lot is at stake," said energy expert Nurul Islam, from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.
Bangladesh has been facing an acute shortage of gas in recent months with demand outstripping supply by 15 percent thanks to its booming manufacturing sector.
The government has told hundreds of factories they will have to wait until 2011 for new supplies, as years of neglect over exploration have fast depleted gas reserves.
To overcome the crunch, the emergency government earlier this year divided its sea territory into 28 blocks and invited bids from international oil companies for exploration contracts.
Myanmar protested the move, although Bangladeshi officials have said they refrained from awarding contracts for blocks lying in disputed waters.
Security expert Imtiaz Ahmed of Dhaka University said Bangladesh's actions this week were aimed at deterring foreign companies who had been awarded contracts by Myanmar to search for gas in the region.
"The government is trying to send a signal to foreign oil companies and the international community that it would take any drillings in the disputed blocks very seriously," Ahmed said.
"Under international laws, Myanmar cannot drill in disputed waters, which have not been demarcated yet."
Ahmed said all seismic surveys showed huge gas reserves in the Bay of Bengal, which would ensure Bangladesh's energy security for decades.
"It's a matter of our future. We may not be rich now but our economy is growing fast. Soon enough we'll have the capacity to drill in deep sea waters," he said.
Myanmar-Bangladesh Energy Crisis
08 November 2008 Labels: News
In Hard Times, Pawnshops Thrive
20 June 2008 Labels: NewsBy Aung Thet Wine/ Rangoon
[Source - Irrawaddy]
A 13-year-old student wearing a school blouse and a faded green longyi shyly approached the owner of the Yadana Pawnshop on Moe Kaung Street in eastern Dagon Myothit.
Pale and very thin, the girl slowly removed a packet from her ragged school bag and handed it to the woman pawnbroker, who unfolded a tattered, faded, longyi. She inspected it carefully, before speaking.
"300 kyat [0.40 cents]," she said. The girl’s eyes turned sad.
"Aunty, please give me 500 kyat,” she said. “Today I have to pay school fees."
The pawnbroker looked at the girl and then silently began folding the longyi. Finished, she carefully wrote out a receipt.
Through a small window, she handed the student 500 kyat and a crisp, white receipt.
The girl smiled. She put the kyat and receipt into her school bag and walked outside into the rain. She could remain in school for one more term.
The men and women waiting in the pawnshop had watched the exchange with sympathy. They were also customers with hopes of getting a few kyat to meet their immediate needs. Some needed bus fare to get to work; some needed money for rice; some needed medicine.
Many people in Burma go to pawnbrokers each day now carrying clothes or cooking utensils to pawn for enough money to get through the day. They are mostly day laborers who are paid small salaries at each day’s end. Some would return that evening to buy back whatever they pawned in the morning, only to return in a few days’ time to pawn the object again.
"After Cyclone Nargis, the most pawned items are clothes and cooking utensils,” said a pawnshop owner in Hlaing Tharyar Township. “Mostly women’s longyi and cooking pots. Most people who pawn things are daily wage earners with low living standards or civil servants in low ranks." "
“Every morning, I have to find money for bus fares," a mason from Ward 21 in Hlaing Tharyar Township told The Irrawaddy. He was working regularly at a construction site in downtown Rangoon and had to commute to work.
A pawnbroker with a shop near Insein Market, said: "When the houses collapsed in the cyclone and a lot of people lost their jobs, they turned to the pawnshops. I had roughly 60 to 100 customers before, but now about 200 to 300 people come regularly.”
A civil servant at the Defense Textile Mill said, "Twelve days after I’m paid the money runs out, and then I have to run to the pawnshop for daily food.”
Pawnshops are among the most successful businesses in Rangoon, according to an official at the Yangon Municipal Committee. He said Rangoon had 137 registered pawnshops in 2000-2001; 169 in 2001-2002; 162 from 2002-2004; 189 in 2004-2005; 214 in 2005-2006; 250 in 2006-2007; and 256 pawnshops in 2008.
A pawnshop owner must bid for a registration license. Owners say the winners are those who pay the largest bribes.
"The license fee is 5 million kyat [about US $4,237] and the bribe is 2 million kyat [$1,695], so totally it costs about 7 million kyat [$5,929] for a license," said a pawnbroker in Hlaing Tharyar Township.
The license fee varies in each township, rising to around 8 million kyat [$6,776] for a downtown township location, according to owners.
Pawnshop owners say you need about 200 million kyat [$169,500] to start a top-line pawnshop, which essentially functions as a small loan business. Many unlicensed pawnshops are springing up, they say, drawing many regular customers away from registered pawnshops.
But for now—with the Burmese economy reeling from the cyclone’s impact and more people out of work—pawnshops everywhere are thriving with customers trying to get through one more day in a life of unrelieved hardship.
More local aid workers arrested
Labels: NewsSource: Irrawaddy
Recently, a local volunteer group made headlines when they started collecting the bodies of the Cyclone Nargis victims and gave them a decent burial in a plot of land they had purchased for this purpose. On 14th June, 7 of these volunteers were detained by the government. Out of these 7, 5 of them belong to a group called All Burma Federation of Students' Union (ABFSU).
Those detained include the Myanmar Tribune publishers U Aung Kyaw San and Dr Nay Win as well as ABSU leaders Ko Lin Htet Naing, Ma Hnin Pwint Wai, and Ko Hein Yazar Tun.
One aid worker told Irrawaddy: "They were detained at a checkpoint on our return trip from Bogale to Pyapon. We heard that the detainees were transferred to Yangon. There were about 16 people in the truck but the driver and some other people were allowed to go home."
For security reasons, ABFSU members have been in hiding since September's Saffron Revolution. However, they have been actively involved relief work since Cyclone Nargis hit the Burma's Irrawaddy Delta in early May.
Since the beginning of June, junta has detained over 20 prominent aid workers without any valid reasons. Those under detention include comedian Zarganar and Sports Editor Zaw Thet Htwe.
A spokesman from ABFSU told Irrawaddy,
"(The Junta is angry for several reasons.) For one, they are not getting as much funds as they want from the International Community. Secondly, news continue to leak out even though they are trying hard to control the media. The fact that private aid workers are getting things done while they cant, it is making them lose face. So of course, they take it out on the local aid workers."
Original article: http://www.irrawaddy.org/bur/news2008/June/june_19a_08.html
Detention of private aid workers
16 June 2008 Labels: NewsSources: Myo Chit Myanmar & Irrawaddy
One of the most active private donor groups have stopped distributing aid after two of its leaders were detained. The group, led by comedian-philanthropist Zarganar and Sports Editor Zaw Thet Htwe, said they will stop distributing aid for the time being.
Meanwhile, three other private aid workers were detained last thursday when they went to a pre-arranged meeting with a monk who had asked for donation items. A family member said the authorities searched the houses of one of the detainees and asked the family to produce receipts and other documents related to aid work.
The reason for detention remains unclear.
Reference Articles:
1. http://myochitmyanmar.blogspot.com/2008/06/blog-post_4535.html
2. http://www.irrawaddy.org/bur/news2008/June/june_16d_08.html
The real reason behind visa delays
08 June 2008 Labels: NewsSource: MMEd Watch
MMEDWatch reported that embassies have been instructed by higher authorities to limit the number of visas issued per week. Sources told MMEDWatch that there were no hard and fast rules on who is allowed entry. For instance, a volunteer was denied visa while an analyst (who supposedly poses more of a threat to Junta) was granted visa.
For the original article in Burmese, please click here.
Homeless cyclone survivors now face monsoon
Labels: NewsPublished Date: 08 June 2008
By Pat Wilde
[Source - ScotlandonSunday]
A SEVERE shortage of housing has left hundreds of thousands of cyclone survivors in Burma exposed to heavy rains as the monsoon season begins.
The United Nations and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies warned there was an "urgent need" for tarpaulins to provide the estimated 1.5 million homeless survivors with temporary shelter. Otherwise, they warned, the threat of hunger and disease could intensify.
"Exposure to the elements five weeks after a disaster of this magnitude has to be a major concern," said John Sparrow, a spokesman for the IFRC. "People are in a weakened condition. They are sick, they are hungry. Without shelter, their whole situation is seriously exacerbated."
The UN estimates a total of 2.4 million people were affected when Cyclone Nargis hit on May 2 to 3, and warns that more than one million of those still need help, mostly in the hard-to-reach Irrawaddy delta.
UN officials and aid groups have criticised the regime for hindering access to the delta, saying it has prevented enough food, water and shelter from reaching desperate survivors.
The top UN humanitarian official said in New York there were now "relatively few people" who have not received any sort of help, but "this aid effort needs to be stepped up further".
"I think people are getting to all the main places, although it's not always as easy as it should be," John Holmes said. "There's no evidence of starvation at the moment, although, as I say, many people are still in significant need of aid."
The UN has said access could be greatly improved if the country's military junta would accept American offers of support, which include the use of 22 military helicopters.
The USS Essex group, which includes four ships, 5,000 US military personnel and the helicopters, on Thursday abandoned plans to deliver aid to the delta after repeated efforts to broker a compromise with the junta failed.
The US military, however, said it was keeping 22 helicopters on standby in case Burma's ruling junta reverses its rejection of such help for cyclone victims, saying the aircraft could reach survivors within three days.
With only seven Burmese government helicopters reportedly flying, relief supplies are mostly being transported along dirt roads and then by boat. International aid agencies say boats able to navigate the delta's canals are scarce and efforts to import vehicles have been hampered by government red tape.
"Of the 1 million or 1.5 million people in need of relief support, we think that between 450,000 and 750,000 are in emergency need," said Lt Gen John Goodman, commander of Marine Forces Pacific and head of the US relief operation for Burma.
They could be reached "over the course of a three-day period" by American helicopters and landing craft, he said in a telephone interview from a temporary US staging area at Utapao, Thailand.
Goodman said the junta was "still considering" the offer, which would include allowing Burma officials aboard all US helicopters to monitor their routes and to unload relief.
The military leaders are particularly reluctant to allow US helicopters into the delta, given that Washington has been a leading critic of the junta for its poor human rights record and refusal to hand power to a democratically elected government.
Those who suffer and Those who enjoy by Nagis Cyclone
06 June 2008 Labels: Essays, NewsWhen I read this blog post written by one fellow Burmese, living inside the troubled country, deeply touched and I feel exactly what s/he does. And I started to type and translate to English as s/he requested .
It's really nice to stay here !!
Everything is just perfect..
Such a good generator ! bring it back to army bar....
have to rebuild with whatever we have...
This is school open day ! Which school we have to go then...
No idea what to do !
Nothing but space to sleep
Those who suffer and Those who enjoy by Nagis Cyclone
(I would be much appreciate if anyone could translate and share this post around the internet and spread the words)
Please look these photos thoroughly! You can see who is enjoying the things and stuffs came along with international aid agencies. Earlier, they ( Army staffs and its followers) tried to smuggle these out. Then, when it exposed to the public and not easy to do so, they just keep for themselves and benefited. How they are doing relief and aid works? He is with iron folded uniform and sit back and relax, watching TV, inside the safe and warm shelter of donated new tent. They don't even have such a chance to rest in their military bar.
How dare they ask victims to wash their cloths and get water for them? They think victims are coming around to serve them and beg for. There are hundreds of tents but not for cyclone victims. However, if high rank officials and international agencies come down to see camps, they quickly manage to push in the selected victims inside the tent and force them to witness what they taught. Who can argue seeing these photos?
Everything is happening different with what international expected. The fact is that these aid and donated stuffs are really useful for them. It seems exactly like army was provided by international aid. Herewith we revealed to the international community representing the genuine cyclone victims. They could hardly manage for the space to sleep in. Even so, authorities evict them within three days.
That's why.. Let me say it out. We just try to accept that it's OK even if victims receive 10 pieces out of 100 donated by international community. But in reality, nothing was handed to victims. So, Please don't send any more food and aid stuffs. It seems like things are provided to army exclusively. They will torture and oppress as long as they are provided with such a nice food and good materials. If you want to donate and support to the real victims, please try to find out the right channel to reach victims out.
( Remark by translator- There are many volunteer groups , reaching directly to the devastated area. Cyclone relief is one of them.)
Zarganar detained (again)
05 June 2008 Labels: NewsSource: Myo Chit Myanmar
Comedian-cum-volunteer Zarganar was detained last night at 8pm. A group of about 10 special agents and Town Council members visited his home, and mounted a search for over 3 hours. At about 11pm, they took him away on the pretext of questioning, along with some items they found in his home.
Zarganar has been very active in distributing aid to the cylone survivors. He recently gave an interview with the BBC in which he dismissed Junta's claim of survivors being self-sufficient.
The agents reportedly told Zarganar's family not to inform any news agencies of his arrest, and that he would be released after questioning.
For the original article in Burmese, please click here.
Prayer sessions being held in Yangon
03 June 2008 Labels: NewsSource: Arzarni.blogspot.com
This afternoon at about 1pm, a crowd of 1400 monks and about 500 people gathered at ShweNyarWah Monastery to hold a prayer session for the cyclone victims. After the session, they plan to take a pilgrimage around the city and chant prayers.
The monastery (and the participants) were surrounded by the army as the news was being reported.
Process of distributing aid materials to the Nagis Victims
25 May 2008 Labels: Essays, News(source)
Shwe Sea Sar (Yangon)
The victims of the cyclone Nargis in the delta region, Lower Burma are facing problems of lack of food, water, shelter and clothing. They do not receive aid materials sufficiently. Neither do they get treatment for cyclone-borne injury. Also they are suffering from disease relevant to contaminated water resulted from delaying of removing and destruction of the human corpses and dead animals.
Although it is desperately needed to save the people, to cleanse the water by removing dead bodies – or it may effect harmfully the environment – to distribute relieve materials from both national and international communities to the victims, the Junta is deliberately disturbing local aid volunteers and blocking international relieve experts.Not only that Burmese Junta is trying to delay the process of receiving international aid and aid workers, but also that China is opposing in the UN Security Council Meeting against the plan to invade Burma to distribute necessary aid to victims effectively.
Whereas, China received international aid for their victims of recent earthquake that shook in Sichuan Province, central China, only one week after the cyclone Nargis. We are wondering why China is trying to hamper the world’s humanitarian effort towards Burmese people who are under horrendous catastrophic disaster. Why are they supporting inhuman military Government without any regard, any sympathy and any empathy to the Burmese people? What is benefit to them for such evil doing? It is humiliation to our people. Also I think it is a criminal.
Yet they are not shy in the face of international community.Now we have learnt that relieve teams from the UN, US, Britain and France are standing by in the Thailand water that shares border with Burmese territorial water. They are waiting for permission to enter Burmese water. In such a situation of catastrophic disaster, does it necessary to get permission from such useless and illegal Government, the Junta? I think saving peoples’ life is more important than the Junta’s approval.Is the UN a nominal organization without practical work? Is it not a trusty-worthy and dependable organization for all people of the world?
In stead of being an organization to observe justice among member countries and to assist necessarily with humanitarian aid to all people of the world, it is now just hesitating and wavering to walk along the right way. The UN and international community are negotiating with Burmese authority – just time consuming – to save the people while the death toll increasing day by day due to lack adequate aid materials. Useless organization!Objection by China in the UN Security Council Meeting against such a humanitarian relief effort is shameful.
Its donation to Burma is just a couple of million US$ worth; a paltry sum; at near base in the donation graph. Why do they want to interfere into other country’s internal affair which does not concern with politics? All of our people except the malignant Junta and its colleagues want invasion of the US, the UN and international community into the country to save victims.They always use the word “internal affair” over Burmese issue. This is just a pure internal and humanitarian affair. Why did they object the international relief efforts for Burmese catastrophe while accepting donation from abroad for their earthquake disaster? Ridiculous! Two situations are completely contrary. This is Chinese policy revealing low morality, low attitude of it. We accuse the Chinese Government of killing our people together with Burmese slaughter Generals. The Chinese Government also must pay back later for it a lot like Than Shwe and his followers. Who can say there will not be a overwhelm boycott of the world to their 2008 Olympic? This will be under nature’s process. Bad deed begets misery and ruins.
Now, it was more than two weeks away that the cyclone Nargis hit the Delta region. Since then, a considerable amount of relief aid from abroad could not arrive at the hands of the victims. Victim’s situation is deteriorating; more and more people will die under insignificant change of international relief policy. Death toll will, according to the UN and other organizations’ prediction, swell over 220,000 – more than that of Bangladesh cyclone that hit in 1991 losing just over 138,000 lives – and it is the worst devastating situation in Burmese history.
We, Burmese people, ask international community for urgent relief efforts including relief experts and workers to enter Burma so that they can distribute necessary aids effectively and save our people from extremely dangerous situation resulting from a lack of food, clean water, proper treatment, medicine, shelter and clothing. Otherwise, great tragedy will happen in this civilized world because of irrational beings, the Burmese Junta.
‘Humanitarian heroes’ reach out to fellow cyclone victims
16 May 2008 Labels: News[Source - bostonherald.com]
YANGON, Myanmar - From shopkeepers handing out free rice porridge to medical students caring for the sick, ordinary people in Myanmar are stepping in to help cyclone victims as the military regime severely restricts international aid.
Taxi drivers, factory owners, college students, teachers and other Yangon residents - many of whom lost their own homes - are among those organizing grueling trips into the Irrawaddy delta, the hardest-hit region.
“They are true humanitarian heroes,” said Bridget Gardner, International Red Cross representative in Myanmar, after touring an area where volunteers were giving first aid to the injured.
They are taking up collections at businesses and donating food, clothes and water. Some who are too poor to give money or supplies are offering their labor to help clear debris and rebuild villages leveled by the May 3 cyclone.
“We feel sympathetic to the cyclone victims and want to help them in our own way,” said Daw Mya Win, who runs a small grocery in a northern Yangon suburb where many bamboo shanty houses were destroyed.
The 49-year-old woman cooks rice porridge every day to feed anyone who comes. She also sends pots of the thick viscous mixture of rice, water and seasonings to some of the thousands of homeless who have sought shelter in the country’s Buddhist monasteries.
The U.N. says up to 2 million survivors are still in need of emergency aid. The military junta has restricted most foreign aid workers from entering Myanmar.
Contacts to Help Cyclone Victims
Labels: News
LOCAL CHARITIES & NGOs
Save the Children (UK)
Contact Number: 241208, 241210, 241211, 248193, 513257
Medecins Sans Frontier’s (MSF (NL))
Contact Number: 534679, 524379
Malteser
Contact Number: 549001/7/710304
Merlin
Contact Number: 511675, 537321
CESVI
Contact Number: 534790
Care
Contact Number: 224647/224507
World Vision
Contact Number: 525191, 527502, 706255, 511265, 510148
International Federation of the Red Cross
Contact Number: 383686, 383682
GRET
Contact Number: 540694/545912
PACT
Contact Number: 538669
OXFAM
Contact Number: 248192 or 525001
Hope
Contact Number: 546829/514650
PSI
Contact Number: 524166/524177
Burnett
Contact Number: 248194/248195
Paung Ku
Contact Person: Justin Corbett
Contact Number: 660446, 241208, 241210, 241211, 248193, 513257
AFXB
Contact Number: 502178
MSI (Marie Stopes International) they have youth centre in Thingankyune and Tharkayta tsps. Contact Number: 544423, 705657
ADRA
Contact Number: 240900, 380419
Support Volunteer Groups
13 May 2008 Labels: NewsA week passed already after Cyclone Nagis in Burma. But aids and relief agency forecast that less than 30 % of victims were reachable and less than 10 % of foods and aids have been distributed. And the rest of the world is still waiting in the gate to donate money and stuffs.
In the mean time, millions of survivors are also still waiting in the flooded swamp with diseases and starvations. More people are dying on the deserted lands, rescuers hard to reach out.
Local volunteer groups are becoming the effective way of helping cyclone victims in such a critical condition. They may be groups of 5 to 6 people. They may small network of friends. They may passionate housewives. They may group of earnest doctors . They may group of celebrities and stars. They may group of teenage Rappers. They are strolling with a bunch of rice pack, cloths and medicines along devastated area. They will be there until the time of effective international aids and rescue teams landed these areas.
We need to support them.
Here is the very new weblog of one volunteer groups working in the ground.
Rumours in Naypyidaw
11 May 2008 Labels: NewsSource: Ko Moe Thee
Rumours are rife in Naypyidaw that US armed forces are going to bomb the administrative capital.
Some of the residents (Naypyidaw was once a village named Kyat Pyay) and civil servants have been seen leaving the city. The source of the anxiety? A deathly pale General Than Shwe who was seen casting his vote on National Television at his first public appearance in serveral days. He was said to have looked so ill that he could barely walk. This had led the civil servants to conclude that he was hysterical about an impending attack by the US armed forces, one civil servant reportedly said. He himself had left Naypyidaw for his safety. In Naypyidaw though, there are nightly parties giving the impression that everything was normal.
People have taken to comparing the current situation to that of the era when Burma was invaded by the British. Prior to the invasion, King Sibaw, the last king of Burma, ordered his advisors killed; they had warned him of the invasion. Instead of planning a defence, he had then arranged for parties and festivals in order to distract the population. Shortly after, Burma fell to the British.
For the original article in Burmese, please click here.
My friends are starving, says a survivor
Labels: NewsSource: Mizzima
Days after Cyclone Nargis destroyed the Irrawady Delta, aid has yet to arrive in the most devastated regions.
One survivor from Laputta township told Mizzima, "My friends have nothing to eat or drink. They're starving." Laputta is situated at the mouth of Bay of Bengal.
According to the man, most of the suvivors are now taking refuge in the town of Laputta, in monasteries and schools. He himself made his way to Yangon to in the hope of getting aid from friends there.
He informed Mizzima that survivors themselves have had to carry out rescue operations, including retrieving the bodies of victims. However, constraints in resources meant that many of the bodies are still left in the water. Some villages are also still submerged in water.
The man, who wished to remain anonymous, added:
"We had a small ceremony for my friend's family who perished. But we couldn't find their bodies. I doubt we'll ever find them."
He is one of the luckier ones who managed to escape the cyclone. His whole family survived. The residents, many of whom have lived along the coast all their lives, could not anticipate the magnitude of destuction that the cyclone brought upon them.
"We didn't even have time to run."
He told Mizzima that most of the villages were simply swept away by the cyclone, and many people were still unaccounted for. While he could not gave an accurate number of how many villages are in the area, he estimated that the number could be anywhere from 24 to 50.
"In the next village, only about 200 remain, out of a population of about 5000."
He said that most of his villagers survived the cyclone. However, the cyclone destroyed not only their houses, but also water wells, forcing the survivors to move into nearby towns such as the town of Laputta and Myaung Mya.
"There are corpses in the water wells, so the water is contaminated. And since we have nothing else to eat or drink, we had no choice but to move to the towns."
As the military government is refusing to let foreign aid workers enter the country, international aid agencies are still unable to get a clear picture of the extent of destruction or the aid required.
"We are still trying to see what is needed. We have not started distributing anything yet",said a Burmese aid worker who wished to remain anonymous.
The man, who had just recently returned from the Irrawady Delta region, added that the government was not allowing any foreigners to enter the area.
"They're only allowing local people to go in."
While the international community has sent hundreds of thousands worth of emergency supplies, as of Friday night, any of it has yet to reach the delta, the worst hit region. Distribution channels are already in place in some of the affected regions in Yangon state.
World's Food Programme Spokesman, Mr Paul Risley, told Mizzima on Friday that WFP will distribute 7 tonnes of high energy biscuits.
For the original article in Burmese, please click here.
Translated News for the day - 10 May
10 May 2008 Labels: News(Translated by May - BBWOB)
Updated Figures - 10 May
Source: Mizzima News
Death toll released by an international agency:
http://www.mizzima.com/images/Nargis/INGO_Death_Toll.png
Meanwhile, junta gave much lower estimates:
http://www.mizzima.com/images/Nargis/Death_Toll_tn.png
...................................................
Source: Democratic Voice of Burma
Pyi Khaing Kyun and Kyaik Ka Thaung, situated two to three hours' boat ride from Haing Gyi, were also badly affected by Cyclone Nargis, according to a resident from Pyi Khaing Kyun. Kyaik Ka Thaung alone was estimated to have a death toll of about 4000. She told DVB that the cyclone victims were in dire stratis and that no aid has been received so far in these areas.
In an interview with DVB, the source said:
"The situation is terrible. I heard that the death toll is very high, especially in Laputta. In the coastal areas, there are salt farms. Each employs about 1000 people. Out of that 1000, 800 plus perished. Entire families have been wiped out."
"The coastal villages were engulfed by the sea. So the survivors have come into town. The town itself is largely unharmed. But the shop owners have not dared to open their cafes as their business will collapse in one morning since they have no paying patrons."
"Apparently, they received rice for lunch. But in the evening, they were only given porridge (as supplies ran low). But it wasn't enough to fill their stomachs, so I heard they were scavenging for coconuts and mangoes."
"Haing Gyi is about 3 hours away on boat. But we can see them from here. I know for a fact that a navy battalion is stationed there. There must be about 2000 to 3000 houses."
"I also heard that there were corpses floating in the water, with many of them entangled in the undergrowth. People told me the smell is foul. In Kyaik Ka Thaung, there has been an outbreak of diahhorea."
"In one place, the whole village was submerged under water. In another village, the entire population was wiped out save for 3 people. I don't know which one... there are so many little villages here."
"Never in my life, has there been a disaster like this. We had never had a problem with floods, but now, the water level is waist high."
"Some people who came back from Laputta told me that those people seem to be very traumatised by what has happened. They look dazed, and scream if someone touches them."
"They are not only homeless, but they have nothing to eat. Some are taking shelter under trees, without adequate clothing or even footwear."
DVB: Has no rescue teams reached the area?"
"Not to Pyi Khaing. Maybe they are already in Haing Gyi. Maybe they don't know about this area as we are rather remote. Perhaps they will come tomorrow."
"There has been some help (for the victims). This morning, one lady gave out packets of instant noodles. In Kyaik Ka Thaung, I heard that rice was being distributed. Kyaik Ka Thaung is a big village, about 2 hours away. I heard that 4000 people perished."
For the original article in Burmese, please click here.
Hungry Survivors
09 May 2008 Labels: NewsI talked to a friend from Burma on gtalk this morning. He said he was fine, but people in his neighborhood were going hungry. He lives in Shwe Pyi Thar township, a poor suburb north of Rangoon.
Mizzima confirmed that some survivors are going hungry with the following news report.
Hungry survivors scare off aid workers
Several aid workers, who went down to Burma's cyclone-devastated Irrawaddy Delta to conduct a needs assessment survey, were forced to flee after they were surrounded by villagers who might have been seeking food, an aid worker said.
The aid worker, who asked to remain anonymous, said the assessment team was in Laputta Township, nearly half of which was submerged by water, when a hundred or more villagers approached.
"The villagers looked pale and hungry," he added. "They might have wanted to ask for food, but the assessment team thought it was dangerous, so they left."
The assessment team returned to Rangoon.
The aid worker, who did not want to name the assessment teams organization, said no material aid has yet reached the Laputta region.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), 92 percent of houses in Laputta Township were destroyed by the Cyclone Nargis, which swept through the region on Friday and Saturday.
Myaung Mya Helps Cyclone Victims
Labels: NewsSource: Democratic Voice of Burma
Myaung Mya, though in the path of Cyclone Nargis, was not badly affected. The town is currently providing food and shelter to about 15,000 cyclone victims from Labutta. Schools in the town have been converted into temporary shelters for the victims.
For the original article in Burmese, please click here.
600,000 killed, 100,000 missing in Burma
08 May 2008 Labels: NewsInterview with one official
According undisclosed interview with one government official, death toll is reaching 600,000 so far and 100,000 still missing.According his figure, 180,000 killed only Lutbutta township. 90,000 in Phyar Pone Township , 80,000 in Bogalay Township. 50,000 each in KywanGanKone , DayDaYae and MawKyane Township.Authorities ( army and its thugs USDA) are throwing away dead bodies to the nearby river.Even in Ye Way Cemetery in Yangon City, dead bodies are cremated in batch without proper identification.Emphasizing to Phyar Pone Township, authority declare Emergency Act and deter not to go out at night but then they are dumping dead bodies to the river.
UNICEF and Direct Relief accepting donations through Google.
07 May 2008 Labels: NewsUNICEF and Direct Relief accepting donations through Google.
http://www.google.com/myanmarcyclone/