Relief as Cyclone Bypasses Burma

By THE IRRAWADDY

People living in Burma’s Irrawaddy delta spent a tense weekend last week, as Cyclone Rashmi brought heavy rains and strong winds to a region that is still recovering from the effects of Cyclone Nargis, which killed at least 85,000 people less than six months ago.

According to the Bangladesh government’s Comprehensive Disaster Management Program, the cyclone made landfall in Bangladesh early Monday morning with wind speeds of up to 80 km/hour. The cyclone, which formed over the Indian Ocean, left at least two people dead and another 11 missing.

Observers said that the loss of life and property was minimal, thanks to the successful preparedness efforts of the Bangladeshi authorities and local communities.

The Burmese government, which was heavily criticized for its failure to alert people to the threat of Cyclone Nargis before it struck on the night of May 2-3, also issued public warnings over the weekend through its department of meteorology and hydrology.

But government efforts to make a show of readiness did little to reassure local people, who feared the worst.

“We were terrified,” said one delta resident, describing his reaction to the powerful gales and menacing clouds that swept the region. “We couldn’t take our eyes off of the sky.”

This brush with a repeat of the disaster that left an estimated 140,000 people dead or missing in May came as Burma’s deputy foreign minister, Kyaw Thu, was in Bangkok to attend a United Nations-backed meeting on the country’s efforts to recover from the effects of Cyclone Nargis.

The two-day “Regional High-level Expert Group Meeting on Post-Nargis Recovery and Livelihood Opportunities,” organized by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), was convened on Monday to bring together disaster-response experts from Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and other countries in the region.

“Asia has always been a focal hub for world knowledge,” said Kyaw Thu, who is also the chairman of the Tripartite Core Group (TCG), which coordinates the relief effort in the Irrawaddy delta. The group consists of representatives of the UN, Asean and the Burmese government.

Kyaw Thu added that he was “engrossed by [the participants’] rich experience and compelling expertise, especially in managing and dealing with the recent natural disasters that have happened in our region.”

Observers say that Cyclone Nargis had a significant impact on the thinking of some Burmese government officials, who now realize that there is a need for collaboration with international relief experts to support a sustainable recovery in the cyclone-hit areas.

“We have again found ourselves at a crucial crossroads,” said Kyaw Thu, who is the son of Dr Maung Maung, a respected scholar who served as Burma’s president for a month during the uprising of August-September 1988.