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The Burma cyclone has wiped out at least 10,000 people in one town alone alone, with the national toll set to top 50,000 dead-mostly killed by a massive sea surge that engulfed across the lowlands."More deaths were caused by the tidal wave than the storm itself,"the Burmese minister for relief and resettlement, Maung Maung Swe, said in the devastated former capital, Rangoon, where food and water supplies are running low."The wave was up to 12 feet high and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages," he said."They did not have anywhere to flee."Cyclone Nargis is the worst to hit Asia since 1991, when 143,000 people died in Bangladesh.State television today announced a death toll of 22,464-but nearly half of that figure comes from the single town of Bogalay.In all, the delta region accounts for as many as 21,793 dead and 40,695 missing.In an appeal for international aid, the country's secretive government announced there could be even more casualties.The casualty count has been rising quickly as rescue teams reach hard-hit islands and villages in the delta, the former "rice bowl of Asia" which bore the brunt of the cyclone's 150-mile-an-hour winds.Hundreds of thousands of villagers have been left without shelter or drinking water since the cyclone ripped through the delta on Saturday. Huge tidal surges added to the devastation, destroying homes and buildings and wiping out essential rice crops."People are saying this is worse than the tsunami [in 2004]," said James East, of the charity World Vision. "It's like a war zone. The number of dead is just staggering."Mark Farmaner, director of the Burma Campaign UK, said the situation could be made worse by corrupt members of the ruling junta exploiting international aid for their own profit.He said: " Ninety per cent of Burmese live on the poverty line. Outside the capital, in the affected Irrawaddy area, most people are poor subsistence farmers who live on less than a dollar a day. The rice was close to harvest time when the cyclone arrived. People will have lost everything."At the moment we've only seen the official estimates of up to 10,000 killed already, but it could be higher than that. In previous disasters, we have seen the death toll doubled because of disease and hunger."Mr Farmaner said the cyclone had been forecast on Wednesday but government newspapers had ignored it."It has taken three days to report the cyclone. In any other country, helicopters would be delivering aid now."When we saw the forecast, I felt horror and helplessness. I know the regime does not care. I knew people would die and aid would not be allowed to them."To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah...
