Myanmar Cyclone Nargis Aftermath

Burma, Myanmar, call it what you like, the people need help.

THE Burmese military junta's slow response to the death and destruction wrought by cyclone Nargis and soaring prices for food and fuel could foment fresh unrest in the country, commentators have warned.

At least 22,000 people are dead and nearly twice as many missing, and aid workers are struggling to get visas to bring life-saving supplies into the country.

Reported by the Malaysia Star:

LABUTTA (Myanmar): The stench of death hung yesterday over this Irrawaddy delta town, where the blackened bodies of people and animals, rotting in the tropical heat, were washed aground as Myanmar's cyclone floodwaters receded.

Struggling to breathe through the overpowering smells, residents wrapped layers of cloth around their faces and rubbed in balm to mask the odour.

Death pervades this town so completely that many residents said they could not sleep because ghosts of the cyclone victims torment them during the night.

“We can't sleep at night because we can hear people shouting at night. Maybe these are the ghosts of the villagers,” one resident said.

Grossly bloated bodies lay strung out along the roads running atop embankments between paddies in a region that was the country's rice bowl, but is now the centre of one of the world's worst natural disasters.

Dead bodies in tropical heat, no clean water and scarce food spell disease. I expect conditions will get worse before they improve. I also speculate that the reporting of the conditions in Burma has been on the conservative side.