Cyclone Nargis death toll in the tens of thousands
A disaster of staggering magnitude continues to unfold in Myanmar, where the death toll from Tropical Cyclone Nargis exceeds 22,000. In one city alone--Bogalay, about 50 miles southwest of the capital of Yangon--10,000 people are thought to have died. Bogalay is a decrepit city of 100,000 that lies at the head of a estuary that leads to the sea. No doubt this narrow waterway served to funnel a storm surge over ten feet high into the city. News reports have not yet been received from the coast southeast of Yangon, which also received a significant storm surge, and the toll from Nargis is certain to go much higher.
Nargis hit the coast of Myanmar Friday night as powerful Category 3 cyclone with winds of 130 mph. The cyclone took the worst possible track, passing directly over the densely populated and low lying Irrawaddy River delta. A deadly storm surge--probably around 12 feet high--inundated the delta region, accounting for most of the deaths. The storm's fierce winds killed many more. The only fortunate thing about Nargis was its small size. Hurricane-force winds covered an area about 90 miles in diameter (Figure 1). In contrast, the wind field of Katrina at landfall spanned an area about 205 miles in diameter. Winds from both storms at landfall were about the same (strong Category 3), but Katrina's winds covered an area four times larger than Nargis.
Figure 1. The wind field (black contours, in knots) of Nargis shortly after landfall, when it was a Category 3 storm with top winds of 105 knots (120 mph). Hurricane force winds (red wind barbs) spanned an area about 90 miles in diameter. Image credit: CSU/CIRA/RAMMB.
Loss of the rice harvest
Nargis' arrival came at the worst time possible, during the winter bora rice crop harvest. This crop, planted in January, and very heavily focused in the Irrawaddy River delta, was significantly affected by Nargis. Rice prices have nearly tripled in the past year, and now Myanmar must wait until the summer rice crop is harvested in September and October before adequate supplies of rice will be at hand. The impact will spread beyond Myanmar, since they export rice to Banladesh and Sri Lanka, according to Reuters.
Comments from Chris Burt
I've been in regular communication about this disaster with Chris Burt, author of the excellent book Extreme Weather. He has been visiting Myanmar every year for 30 years, and has much insight on the situation there:
Note this: No word yet about casualties from the Mon or Karen States; those areas not in the Delta region but to the SE of Rangoon where a major storm surge and flooding from rains may have occurred.
The government considers these areas 'minority states' and these states have traditionally been looked down upon by ethnic Burmese, They are heavily populated. I will bet they will be the last areas to receive aid, and the last regions from which we hear news so far as storm damage is concerned.
I might add this is indicative of just how bad the situation in Burma is. People who are not aware of the isolation of Myanmar, one of the largest most populated countries in the world, will not be able to grasp the gravity of this disaster. It is a country under the thumb of complete ignorants: the leaders of this county have NEVER traveled outside of Burma before. They have no education whatsoever. They live in a dream world of astrology and have maintained their control by funneling all the nation's vast resources to crony patronage and the military. China is their only steadfast friend in the international arena. Even Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and India who do business with this regime do so at hands length.
If you can understand what I am saying here you will understand just how bad the situation is.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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But Many didnt. So those that stayed here, In Waveland,Slidell,Biloxi..and Pascagoula,All made bad decisions.
Some even paid the ultimate price along with other loved ones who remained behind with them.
And, I know that you follow Sandcrab's reports, too - we're still not building adequate shelters and working together like we should. I'm not taking up for our governments, but it's far better than the likes of Myanmar's junta, or whatever it is that they call that charade for a government there.
And, that's what I like about your call for "preparedness!" Year after year, the threat of these things loom, yet people just procrastinate and ignore and then disaster happens and it's too late to prepare then.
SANTIAGO, Chile - The Chaiten volcano spewed lava and blasted ash more than 12 miles into the sky on Tuesday, prompting a total evacuation of the provincial capital and other settlements.
President Michelle Bachelet interrupted a speech in the capital to announce that "the volcano is exploding so a total evacuation of the town of Chaiten has been ordered."
Rains following the eruption have carpeted surrounding areas in ash and mud. Hard hit is Chaiten, a small provincial capital of wooden houses and cobblestone streets just 6 miles from the volcano in southern Chile.
More than 4,000 people had fled earlier and the few remaining residents were being transferred to two navy ships.
Palena province Gov. Fernando Aguilar said some people were resisting, but "everybody must leave."
The volcano's five-day eruption has sent a thick column of ash into the stratosphere, streaming across Patagonia to the Atlantic.
Carmen Fernandez, head of Chile's Emergency Bureau, said the final evacuation order covers 300 people, including police, soldiers, emergency personnel, a few reporters and some residents.
Fernandez said the amount of lava emerging from the volcano "is very small and very thick, so it is moving very slowly."
Authorities were also evacuating the ash-coated town of Futaleufu, about 75 miles east of Chaiten near the Argentine border. Many people there wore surgical masks or cloth across their mouth to guard against the gritty ash.
Officials in Argentina also reported ash fall over wide areas in the southern part of the country.
The tropical wave has continued marching westward and has made it to around 44W between 2N and 8N. There is very little, if any, shower activity associated with it as it had funneled in some African dust on its voyage across the Atlantic.
There is some rather interesting disturbed weather rolling off Africa right now. There is no tropical wave associated with this activity at this time, but it does have some semblance to one. Here is the latest satellite image.
Had Nargis continued to the North-East as originally projected, it would have made landfall near the Bangladesh-Myanmar border region, not as heavily populated.
Had Nargis moved ENE as projected by day 2, it would have come onshore in the Myanmar hill country, again not heavily populated. It would have been a rain maker, but not nearly as devestating.
Had Nargis made landfall a little further North, the highly populated Irrawaddy Delta region wouldn't have had nearly the storm surge.
That the storm would make landfall somewhere was predictable. A Myanmar impact was pretty much a conclusion from day 1. Forecasters at first had Nargis growing to a Cat-3 or Cat-4 storm, then revised the forecasts down to only a Cat-2 or Cat-1 due to wind shear and unfavorable conditions.
Up until about 12-hours before landfall, the projected course was still a little further North than actually occurred, although Cat-3 intensity was already assured.
The average citizen of Irrawaddy Delta probably heard from BBC radio that a storm was approaching. They knew it would be a bad storm. Most of the populace there had never experienced a bad hurricane and had no experience with a storm surge. They didn't know what to expect.
We have the benefit of watching weather coverage of hurricanes on TV and learning from past events. They don't. I'm sure the actual severity and rising waters caught people completely unaware... similar to Galveston during the Great Storm. They knew one was coming, but nobody knew what to expect.
You can't blame people for what they don't know. In addition, I felt that having only three storm models tracking the thing... and the very sparse coverage the storm received before landfall... was appalling.
We know if a storm in the atlantic even has a momentary hiccup. CNN news and the weather channel rides those storms from beginning to end. The Cyclone Nargis got almost no press, no exposure except simple warnings to fishing vessels.
If the world can create better Tsunami warnings after the Indian Ocean earthquake, maybe we can now concentrate on better Cyclone warnings after 20,000 + deaths.
YANGON, Myanmar - The cyclone death toll soared above 22,000 on Tuesday and more than 41,000 others were missing as foreign countries mobilized to rush in aid after the country's deadliest storm on record, state radio reported.
Up to 1 million people may be homeless after Cyclone Nargis hit the Southeast Asian nation, also known as Burma, early Saturday. Some villages have been almost totally eradicated and vast rice-growing areas are wiped out, the World Food Program said.
Images from state television showed large trees and electricity poles sprawled across roads and roofless houses ringed by large sheets of water in the Irrawaddy River delta region, which is regarded as Myanmar's rice bowl.
"From the reports we are getting, entire villages have been flattened and the final death toll may be huge," Mac Pieczowski, who heads the International Organization for Migration office in Yangon, said in a statement.
President Bush called on Myanmar's military junta to allow the United States to help with disaster assistance, saying the U.S. already has provided some assistance but wants to do more.
"We're prepared to move U.S. Navy assets to help find those who have lost their lives, to help find the missing, to help stabilize the situation. But in order to do so, the military junta must allow our disaster assessment teams into the country," he said.
Bush spoke at a ceremony where he signed legislation awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to Burmese democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Myanmar's military regime has signaled it will welcome aid supplies for victims of a devastating cyclone, the U.N. said Tuesday, clearing the way for a major relief operation from international organizations.
But U.N. workers were still awaiting their visas to enter the country, said Elisabeth Byrs of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
"The government has shown a certain openness so far," Byrs said. "We hope that we will get the visas as soon as possible, in the coming hours. I think the authorities have understood the seriousness of the situation and that they will act accordingly."
The appeal for outside assistance was unusual for Myanmar's ruling generals, who have long been suspicious of international organizations and closely controlled their activities. Several agencies, including the International Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, have limited their presence as a consequence.
Allowing any major influx of foreigners could carry risks for the military, injecting unwanted outside influence and giving the aid givers rather than the junta credit for a recovery.
However, keeping out international aid would focus blame squarely on the military should it fail to restore peoples' livelihoods.
Some aid agencies reported their assessment teams had reached some areas of the largely isolated region but said getting in supplies and large numbers of aid workers would be difficult.
Shari Villarosa, the top American diplomat in Yangon, told NBC's "Today" show that the cyclone had knocked huge trees in the country's largest city.
"And it blew down a significant portion of them, some of these are 6, 8, 10 stories tall — huge trees, 6 feet, 5 feet in diameter. So they came down on roofs," she said.
The cyclone came only a week ahead of a key referendum on a constitution that Myanmar's military leaders hoped would go smoothly in its favor, despite opposition from the country's feisty pro-democracy movement. However, the disaster could stir the already tense political situation.
State radio also said that Saturday's vote would be delayed until May 24 in 40 of 45 townships in the Yangon area and seven in the Irrawaddy delta, which took the brunt of the weekend storm. It indicated that the balloting would proceed in other areas as scheduled.
The decision drew swift criticism from dissidents and human rights groups who question the credibility of the vote and urged the junta to focus on disaster victims.
Myanmar's generals have hailed the referendum as an important step forward in their "roadmap to democracy." It offers the first chance for voters to cast ballots since 1990, and the probability is high they will approve the constitution — a legal framework the country has lacked for two decades.
But critics, including the United Nations, the United States and human rights groups, question whether it will lead to democracy.
Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. Its government has been widely criticized for suppression of pro-democracy parties such as the one led by Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has been under house arrest for almost 12 of the past 18 years.
At least 31 people were killed and thousands more were detained when the military cracked down on peaceful protests in September led by Buddhist monks and democracy advocates.
Washington has long been one of the ruling junta's sharpest critics for its poor human rights record and failure to hand over power to a democratically elected government
now why didn't they cover it heavilly?....because their audience by and large was not interested and they have an obligation to their advertisers and shareholders to report stories that attract the largest audience...it's not their "business" to keep people informed...it's the "business" to make a profit
RUSSIA INVADES GEORGIA
I hope not!
/calls up the Georgia National Guard...
History teaches that a lack of hurricane awareness and preparation are common threads among all major hurricane disasters. By knowing your vulnerability and what actions you should take, you can reduce the effects of a hurricane disaster. Hurricane Preparedness Week during 2008 will be held May 25th through May 31st.
The goal of this Hurricane Preparedness Web site is to inform the public about the hurricane hazards and provide knowledge which can be used to take ACTION. This information can be used to save lives at work, home, while on the road, or on the water
There is no profit to individual news organizations in reporting a tropical cyclone making landfall in a poor district in Myanmar. Those people don't watch the weather channel, tune in to CNN or spend money at the mall. There are no commercial revenues to be gained.
However, governments have a responsibility. If you consider the $Billions spent on recovery after the Tsunami, that money would have been better spent on an early warning system. If you consider the $Billions spent on helping the devestated people of Myanmar, that money could have been better spent on early cyclone warning systems and better community based warning. Even simple accurate radio reports would have been better.
The World is about to witness Thousands lost to the aftermath of Tropical Cyclone Nargis.
The time is now 75-85 Hour Post Impact. Folks are running on empty.Seniors and the young are suffering.
Machines and Men are needed en masse to avert a Human Tragedy...bungled by Borders and Superstious and Power Hungry Men.
Tearfund partners in the eye of the devastation respond to communities hit by Cyclone Nargis Link
Tearfund partner agencies inside Myanamar (Burma) are responding to the thousands of people that were hit by the devastating impact of Cyclone Nargis at the weekend. Tens of thousands are now thought to have died when winds and waves ripped thorough coastal and inland regions.
Map of 'USAID Humanitarian Assistance to Burma'
* Date: 05 May 2008
* Type: Natural Disaster
* Keyword(s): Cyclone; Natural Disaster; Operations; Food; Shelter and Non-food Assistance; Water and Sanitation
* Format:
usaid_PRG_mmr080505.pdf PDF *, 2289 Kb Link
BUREAU FOR DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT, AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE (DCHA)
OFFICE OF U.S. FOREIGN DISASTER ASSISTANCE (OFDA)
BACKGROUND AND KEY DEVELOPMENTS Link
On May 2 at 1600 hours local time, Cyclone Nargis made landfall near the mouth of the Irrawaddy River in the Irrawaddy Division of Burma, according to the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center. The cyclone made landfall with a maximum sustained wind speed of approximately 132 miles per hour (mph) and a storm surge of 12 feet. The cyclone then continued east-northeast, affecting Rangoon through May 3 with a maximum sustained wind speed of approximately 90 to 100 mph.
The Government of Burma (GOB) has reported more than 4,000 deaths and 93,000 displaced, but these figures remain unconfirmed. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that the most affected areas are Irrawaddy Division, Rangoon Division, Bago Division, Kayin State, Kayah State, and Mon State.
Did somebody say world police?
Reports have been coming in about direct storm related deaths only. What you will never hear is that for every 1 death, there are probably 3 severely injured people and almost no medical care. The regional food crop was wiped out, so there is a double-whammy of no rice harvest and no income for families to buy food. Fish farms and river fish populations were disrupted. In short, the regional food supply will take time to rebuild.
In addition to food shortages, disease due to contaminated water and decay will become a serious health problem this year.
There are likely tens of thousands of orphans after this storm. Lots of elderly lost their sons & daughters upon whom they depended.
The actual toll long-term is much worse than simply the first week's totals. The residual is what we will never hear about.
With ..Impact details - Affected cities and critical infrastructure (advisory number: 25)
The Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System provides near real-time alerts about natural disasters around the world and tools to facilitate response coordination, including media monitoring, map catalogues and Virtual On-Site Operations Coordination Centre. Link
Its real sad man.
But its also very dangerous.........
Actually, i first picked up on news of a depression forming from believe it or not: a CNN weather short. Quickly went over to view the latest satellite picture and went "whoa, how did i NOT see that?". I'm no expert at predictions, but i'd like to keep track of stuff in the region (brother and uncle are in the marine/shipping industry, so i help them keep tabs). Still can't believe i didn't expect Nargis to come knocking.
There actually wasn't that much news around the region about the storm during the few days of its development.
In fact, i was tracking its landfall and even hours after that, still no mention of it in the news! It wasnt until at least 12 to 20 hours (some, even a full day!) after that the first of the Asian media begin to broadcast about it. I'm sorely disappointed.
As it is, the Myanmar/Burmese (take your pick) population over here in Singapore is in a state of panic. Many here are students and i've never seen so many of my friends in such a state of mind. I can only hope their families are all alright. No one deserves such a tragedy, and certainly nobody should wish it on anyone else.
Lets see, 500,000 Cars,3.70 a gal times the Mpg of a Hybrid.or Prius,carry the one..
Im gonna a bigger calculator.
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