An eyewitness account of situation in Rangoon division

by Mizzima News

Monday, 12 May 2008 21:29

Rangoon - Despite the government's restriction on journalists and foreign aid workers traveling to places in the Irrawaddy delta and parts of Rangoon division, which were the worst hit by Cyclone Nargis, Mizzima's correspondent in Rangoon was able to sneak into the Rangoon division's Kunchankone and Kwunchaung towns. An eyewitness account of Mizzima's correspondent: "Help us." read a signboard on the road leading to Kunchankone. Little else really needs to be said. Ten days since Cyclone Nargis tore through Burma's low lying delta region, the relief that has arrived cannot match the sheer enormity of the needs of the victims. In Kunchankone, the local Red Cross run disbursement centre allots each family a single egg and a packet of instant noodles per day. Elsewhere, people who walk to distribution centres from villages off the main road report receiving 4.2 kilograms of rice per family per week. This failure to adequately meet the needs of Burma's cyclone-affected population is not simply a function of the government's actions or inactions - but more than anything a testament to the plight of millions of people. As a result of the burgeoning humanitarian crisis in the wake of Nargis, the length of the main road between the town of Kunchankone in Rangoon Division and Dardaye in Irrawaddy Division - the country's worst hit, is now lined with groups of people desperate for additional aid from private donors who drive in vehicles loaded with rice, water, food and medical supplies. Thus far at least, the authorities have not attempted to disrupt such disbursements. As a truck or car stops along the route, crowds of survivors - often led by sprinting children - run to receive whatever assistance may be forthcoming. For a population in need, the people are remarkably well-behaved, for the most part waiting with discipline their turn and refraining from physically impeding traffic that does not stop. The private aid itself, some funded by Burmese residing abroad, arrives mainly as a result of Rangoon's civilian, business and religious communities - with a truckload of rice from a Muslim organization welcomed at the steps of a monastic complex now in shambles, the once sloping and sheltered stairway up to the pagoda is a mass of twisted metal and jagged concrete. Yet this umbilical chord of relief also points to another fact - villages removed from the main road and its vicinity stand virtually ignored. The road to the Irrawaddy River village of Kwunchaung is a journey of sadness. A woman walks the road still searching for five members of her family lost in the chaos of the storm. Empty space is all that remains of clusters of huts and homes - the un-retrieved full sacks of rice an ominous indication as to the fate of the former inhabitants. The occasional overwhelming stench of rotting flesh distinctly points to what lies beneath the debris and amidst flooded rice paddy now inundated with saltwater. In the village of Kwunchaung, having lost at least 57 persons out of the pre-cyclone population of some 800, rebuilding has already begun. With the monsoon rains quickly approaching, shelter is at a premium. We are the first aid convoy to arrive in Kwunchaung, nine days after the cyclone, and re-hydration supplements are in desperate need if the tragedy of the cyclone is not to be repeated in the disease - some families are already said to be suffering from diarrhea. Fishermen, a short walk from the village to the Irrawaddy, speak of clinging to mango trees as the storm raged. Receding waters have left behind a river shore dotted with decomposing carcasses of humans and animals alike - several grossly disfigured. From a shallow boat, the sight of the occasional fisherman along the muddy embankment is dominated by what is otherwise a verifiable wasteland - the former greenery and its inhabitants simply swept away. The heart of Burma's rice bowl, once known as the rice bowl of Asia, is devastated. And such devastation bodes of heretofore untold, negative consequences for Burma's domestic rice supply in a global environment already witnessing an appreciable increase in the price of rice. As for the family with the "Help Us." signboard, the government has since ordered the placard removed, as it presumably does not portray an image of the delta in the aftermath of Nargis the government wishes to be seen. < Prev   Next >