Eyewitness account from Rangoon

Mizzima News

Tuesday, 06 May 2008 17:11

Rangoon: I am in my apartment overlooking an area of about one square kilometer. Until Friday night it was covered with trees. Now all I see is a scene of utter devastation. Hundreds of trees are uprooted, houses smashed by falling trees and roofs gone with the wind. I came home late on Friday night in the middle of torrential rains and gusty winds. But that was a prelude to what was yet to come. Around 2:00 am the cyclone hit with full force to the sound of breaking trees, crashing of metal roofs and howling wind and rain. By 6 am the first light of day began filtering in. I watched trees crash, one after another. Mango and banyan trees over 50 years old came down burying houses, smashing roofs, water tanks and blocking roads. By 12 noon it was all over, overnight Yangon has turned into a disaster zone; there is no electricity or water, roads are blocked, virtually no transportation is available and prices of petrol, water and food are skyrocketing. People are wandering along unlit streets late into night searching for water or a place to shower. The roof of Yangon General Hospital is severely damaged, there is no electricity or water. Patients awaiting urgent surgery have been sent home. Sunlight is fierce now and like the General Hospital in downtown Yangon the situation is getting unbearable in the other hospitals too; there is no one to care for the patients; nurses who left for home on Friday have not been able to return to duty.  A few lucky with a generators have electricity, but diesel is already in short supply. The price of diesel rose from US$ 4 before the storm to US$ 12 yesterday. Meanwhile the price of drinking water has quadrupled and food is getting scarce. Most shops are closed as employees find it difficult to get to work places. Apart from roads being blocked by falling trees, most of the buses and taxis are stranded on the roads for want of liquid gas. Following the government's move, all public buses and most taxis had converted to liquid fuel and now with no electricity liquid gas stations are closed. Those with gasoline vehicles are queuing for hours at the government owned stations. Amidst all this, the market for building materials, tin sheets for roofing, nails etc. is booming. Customer are frantically buying up rapidly depleting stocks and prices are increasing by the hour. And for all that the military is noticeably absent. Except of some publicity stunts involving the Yangon Regional Military commander directing soldiers with a chain saws to cut trees, the clearing up work is largely left to civilians and monks. They try cleaning up with machetes and small hand tools. But what they cannot do is to restore electricity supply. Thousands of electricity poles, street lights, traffic lights and loose cables are lying across the roads, obstructing traffic. To make matters worse most of the public water supply depends on electrical pumps. People are furious at the military. They cynically comment, only after we have done all the work, the government officials, Generals, soldiers, militia and all will show up and boast of their good work and rapid action. Unlike the West, there are no emergency shelters here and schools or public building are not opened up to take in the homeless; neither is there emergency aid of rice or water for the storm affected. Myanmar was totally unprepared for the cyclone that hit it. On Friday no more than vague rumors were heard in Yangon about a big storm coming its way. The information came mostly from international Satellite channels. Late on Friday, Myanmar government issued a mild storm warning and cautioned about rising tide. The information never reached the villages in the vast Irrawaddy Delta. Entire villages and towns are believed to have been wiped out by the storm, rain and flooding. Already one hears talks of several hundred thousands of victims. Nobody in Yangon can remember a storm as big as this. Century old trees lie uprooted in large numbers. For the first time in ten years Yangon University buildings can be clearly seen from the main road; the hundred of trees that once blocked the view are now on the ground. < Prev   Next >