Burma has had ample warnings of this storm coming, up to a week in advance, but seemingly failed to warn its population of this natural occurrence. It is now feared that the death toll might be even higher than 30,000, some even quoting numbers of possible hundreds of thousands.
NASA satellite pictures showing the flooded Iravaddy delta in Burma TNA:
"The Thai government has approved a US$100,000 grant to assist victims of Cyclone Nargis which devastated Myanmar over the weekend, and Thailand will consider further assistance as the Cabinet meets today, according to the minister of foreign affairs.
Interviewed on the morning news program on Modernine TV (TV Channel 9), Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama said the ministry doubled its aid to $100,000 from an initial $50,000 to help cyclone-battered Myanmar.
The cabinet meeting today will discuss providing more assistance on rehabilitation work, he said.
"We are among the countries that offered help to Myanmar early. The army on Monday sent dry food and medical supplies to cyclone-hit areas by a C-130 military transport aircraft. The Myanmar foreign ministry thanked Thailand for the humanitarian aid," Mr. Noppadon said.
Myanmar's state media said last weekend's cyclone killed some 10,000 persons in the town of Bogalay in the country's Irrawaddy Delta, raising fears that the country's overall death toll will rise significantly.
The Associated Press reported Myanmar's foreign minister told diplomats in Yangon on Monday that, overall, more than 10,000 people may have died when Cyclone Nargis struck Saturday.
Myanmar has appealed for urgent assistance from the international community in wake of the disaster."
Agencies:
"At least 15,000 people were killed in the Burma cyclone and the toll is likely to rise as officials make contact with the worst-hit Irrawaddy delta areas, the military government's foreign minister said today.
Nyan Win said on state television that 10,000 people had died in just one town, Bogalay, as he gave the first detailed account of what is emerging as the worst cyclone to hit Asia since 1991, when 143,000 people died in Bangladesh.
The total left homeless by the 190kph winds and 3.5-metre storm surge is in the several hundred thousands, United Nations aid officials say, and could run into the millions.
The scale of the disaster drew a rare acceptance of outside help from the diplomatically isolated generals, who spurned such approaches in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami."
The Nation:
"Despite weather advisory from Thailand-based Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre, Burmese citizens were not given enough notice to prepare for Cyclone Nargis.
Burma's Department of Meteorology and Hydrology was told of the formation of Cyclone Nargis a week in advance, but the country was not prepared to handle a disaster of this magnitude.
Bhichit Rattakul, executive director of Thailand-based Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC), said yesterday that one of the first warnings came from the US Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Centre, which issued an alert on April 27.
The ADPC, which established an Asia-Pacific-wide early-warning centre for natural disasters at Thailand's Asian Institute of Technology in the wake of 2004 tsunami disaster, forecast the tropical cyclone in the Bay of Bengal, he said." ...
"According to news reports, large areas of southwest Burma are under water after the devastating cyclone that struck at the weekend, killing at least 22,000 people, satellite images show.
Tropical Cyclone Nargis slammed into Burma late on Friday, wiping away entire villages in the Irrawaddy delta and wreaking destruction on a country that is already one of the poorest on the planet.
Nasa pictures taken on Monday show the entire coastal plain under water, with fallow agricultural areas of the delta - the country's main rice-growing region - particularly hard hit by flooding."
"Most of the victims of the Burma cyclone were overwhelmed by a 12ft moving wall of water that bore down on their low-lying 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.
“More deaths were caused by the tidal wave than the storm itself,” said Maung Maung Swe, Burma's Minister for Relief and Resettlement, at a news conference in the rubble-strewn city of Rangoon, where food and water supplies are running low.
“The wave was up to 12ft (3.5 meters) high and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages. They did not have anywhere to flee.”" ...
"“The impact of the disaster could be worse than the (2004 Asian) tsunami because it is compounded by the limited availability of resources on top of the transport constraints.”"
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