families lost, survivors sufferr -- The old fisherman tries to explain how a cyclone swept away his entire extended family, but he can utter only a few simple words before he is overcome by tears and trauma.
"All my 28 family members have died. I am the only survivor," said Thein Myint, 68, whose flimsy house was torn apart May 3 when cyclone Nargis sent powerful waves surging in from the sea.
Thein Myint's village is in a devastated belt around Bogalay, one of the worst-hit towns in the Irrawaddy delta some 30 kilometres from the Indian Ocean where thousands have died.
Other survivors -- from similar extended families still common in rural Myanmar -- are now fighting hunger, illness and wrenching loneliness.
"We huddled together, but the big trees carried by the waves knocked down two of my children and my wife," said Htay Maung, 70, recounting a common story at a large Buddhist monastery where many others took shelter from the almost 200-kilometre-an-hour winds.
When the winds first sprang up, and the storm surge rose higher, he, his wife and four children climbed to the roof of their house and clung to each other.
"Only two of my children survived," Htay Maung told an Associated Press reporter who reached the town via car from the main city of Yangon, a trip of more than 160 kilometres that took about five hours because of flooding and downed bridges.
As Htay Maung spoke, children cried, adults moaned and others complained that authorities had only distributed sodden, fermented rice.
"We knew that the storm was coming, but we didn't know how dangerous or deadly it will be, so as usual I told the children to stay indoors," said one of the men sheltered in open-sided sheds in the large monastery compound.
"We heard of the storm warning around 1 p.m., and the cyclone came five hours later," added another.
Bogalay residents said the warning came via a public address system in the town but written notices were dispatched by boats to the surrounding villages, which suffered far more when Nargis struck.
The villages continue to face hardship, since access by aid workers is difficult and shelter almost non-existent.
Many villagers who have not sought refuge in the badly battered town live under shelters of four or five coconut palm leaves tied together, surrounded by stagnant, fetid pools of water.
Soft drink cans are used to catch rain water for cooking what little rice remains. Some are trying to dry unhusked rice beside the road. Villagers tell of their urgent needs: food, clothing and medicine for illnesses and injuries.
One man's naked back was red and raw from the lashings of broken branches and fallen tree trunks swirling in a wall of water 3 1/2 metres high that rushed deep into the low-lying delta.
Initially, Myanmar authorities had feared that 10,000 people had perished in the Bogalay area, which Myanmar's meteorological department said was in the path of the cyclone's eye.
In recent days, however, officials have given no breakdown of the toll, saying only that at least 62,000 people are dead or missing countrywide.
Bodies have been cleared from the streets of Bogalay and repairs have begun on roofless houses and damaged infrastructure. Workers haul utility poles and corrugated iron sheets for roofing as some helicopters arrive with relief supplies.
Thein Myint, the broken fisherman who lost eight children among his 28 relatives, did not seem to care about repairs and restoration, or even money.
Money "is useless to me now, without my family," he said as he ate rice mixed with boiled banana shoots. "They were washed away."
-- The Associated Press
Deadly decade
. October 2005: Northern Pakistan
earthquake (magnitude 7.6) kills about
78,000 people.
. August 2005: U.S. Gulf Coast hurricane
Katrina kills at least 1,600 people in
Louisiana and Mississippi.
. December 2004: Indian Ocean tsunami
(triggered by magnitude 9.0 earthquake)
kills 230,000 in a dozen countries.
. December 2003: Southeastern Iran
earthquake (magnitude 6.5) kills 26,000.
PREVIOUS
