Cyclone kills nearly 4,000 in Myanmar
Updated: 2008-05-05 23:16
YANGON -- A devastating cyclone killed nearly 4,000 people and left thousands more missing in Myanmar, state media said on Monday.
The death toll from Saturday's cyclone covered only two of the five declared disaster zones, where U.N. officials said hundreds of thousands of people were without shelter and drinking water.
"The confirmed number is 3,934 dead, 41 injured and 2,879 missing within the Yangon and Irrawaddy divisions," Myanmar TV reported three days after Cyclone Nargis, a storm with winds of 190 kph (120 mph), hit the Irrawaddy delta.
Earlier reports put the death toll at 351, but the number of casualties had been expected to rise as authorities reached hard-hit islands and villages in the delta, rice bowl for the impoverished Southeast Asian country of 53 million.
"The U.N. will begin preparing assistance now to be delivered and transported to Myanmar as quickly as possible," Paul Risley of the World Food Programme told Reuters.
FOREIGN AID
The United States said it had provided funds through the World Food Programme and other aid groups.
"It doesn't necessarily go directly to the government," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel told reporters. "But we're in the process of assessing what more we can do."
Two Indian naval ships loaded with food, tents, blankets, clothing and medicines would sail for Yangon soon, Indian's Ministry of External Affairs said.
Offers of help have also came from Singapore and neighbouring Thailand, while the European Union said it had extra humanitarian staff on standby and was ready to provide aid quickly.
The last major storm to ravage Asia was Cyclone Sidr which killed 3,300 people in Bangladesh last November.
In the former capital Yangon, food and fuel prices have soared as aid agencies scrambled to deliver emergency supplies and assess the damage in the five declared disaster zones, home to 24 million people.
"How many people are affected? We know that it's in the six figures," Richard Horsey, of the U.N. disaster response office, told Reuters after an emergency aid meeting in Bangkok on Monday before the state TV announcement.
"We know that it's several hundred thousand needing shelter and clean drinking water, but how many hundred thousand we just don't know."
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