chicky_pie
POTATO HEAD ROXON
No thread on this yet? I'm shocked.THE death toll from Burma's worst natural disaster in living memory could reach 250,000, and millions of people will be homeless, a commentator says.
Cyclone Nargis savaged Burma's densely populated rice-growing Irrawaddy Delta region and Rangoon with winds of up to 200km/h at the weekend.
The hardline military dictatorship which rules Burma has so far put the number of deaths at 22,500. A further 41,000 are missing, according to official figures.
But Larry Jagan, former BBC Asia affairs editor, says military sources put the fatalities around 30,000.
"This is the worst natural disaster that Burma has suffered in living memory. It's very much like Burma's tsunami,'' he told ABC Television.
"I fear the death toll could mount to something like a quarter of a million people.''
The people had no warning and most Burmese cannot swim so the majority of them would have drowned, Mr Jagan said.
"The death toll is only the tip of the iceberg,'' he said. "The real problem is that we're talking about a mass homelessness, possibly in the millions of people in the delta and in Rangoon.''
World Vision health advisor Kyi Minn, who is in Rangoon, said an eye witness told him of the devastation in the delta region.
"He (an eyewitness) had to walk for two days ... because there is no transportation at all,'' Mr Minn told ABC Television.
"He said on the road, he saw corpses on the road and some are floating on the river, so the scene is quite devastating.''
The most pressing problem was to remove the trees from the road so supplies of fresh water and temporary tents could be moved in, Mr Minn said.
'They are climate change victims'
Former US vice president and now environmental campaigner Al Gore said the cyclone was a consequence of global warming, the Business and Media Institute reports.
“The death count in Myanmar from the cyclone that hit there yesterday has been rising from 15,000 to way on up there to much higher numbers now being speculated,” Mr Gore said.
“And last year a catastrophic storm from last fall hit Bangladesh. The year before, the strongest cyclone in more than 50 years hit China – and we’re seeing consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming.” *
* Gore's at it again to promote his myth on 'Global Warming'.
