Cyclone death toll could reach 10,000 in Myanmar (3rd Roundup)

May 5, 2008, 15:15 GMT

Fallen trees straddle a canal in Yangon, Myanmar following tropical cyclone Nargis in this photo released by Democratic Voice of Burma, Much of Yangon was still suffering water shortages and lack of electricity 05 May 2008, two days after a cyclone hit Myanmar‘s coastal regions. EPA/DEMOCRATIC VOICE OF BURMA

Yangon - The death toll from Cyclone Nargis, which smashed into central Myanmar over the weekend, is likely to reach 10,000 with hundreds of thousands left homeless, government sources predicted Monday.

By the last official count, some 3,930 had died in the disaster and another 2,879 were listed as missing by Monday, a state-run Myanmar radio station said in an evening broadcast.

But Foreign Minister Nyan Win, in a meeting with diplomats Monday afternoon, predicted the final death toll could exceed 10,000, a government source said.

The government has welcomed foreign assistance in cash and goods, although the details have yet to be worked out, the source said. Myanmar's military regime is somewhat notorious for its reluctance to allow international aid organizations direct access to its people.

Hundreds of thousands have been left homeless and without basic utilities by the cyclone, which blew off the Bay of Bengal late Friday, packing winds of up to 200 kilometres per hour, wrecking much of the country's already fragile infrastructure and threatening its precarious food supply.

Yangon, Myanmar's former capital and the country's commercial hub, was among the places hardest hit by the storm, which uprooted trees, toppled electricity and telephone poles, and burst water pipes, leaving the city of several million without basic utilities.

In Bangkok, United Nations agencies and other international aid organizations met Monday to prepare for emergency disaster relief for the country.

'It's too early to provide an accurate assessment but we're speaking about hundreds of thousands of homeless,' said Terje Skavdal, regional director of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), who headed the Bangkok meeting.

'The UN support system is not sufficient inside Myanmar,' he added.

Myanmar's government-controlled prime time evening news showed Prime Minister General Thein Sein visiting trouble spots in Yangon, along with other generals, but providing no details of the extent of the natural disaster.

There were doubts that the military would welcome international aid at this juncture, as it is gearing up to stage a national referendum on Saturday to vote on a draft constitution that promises to legitimize the military's dominant role in Myanmar's future politics.

Despite the disaster wrought by the cyclone, state media reports on Monday confirmed that Myanmar's military regime intended to go ahead with a referendum.

'The referendum is only a few days away, and the people are eagerly looking forward to voting,' a government statement carried by state-run media said.

The storm's devastation has raised questions about the propriety of the government's referendum plans.

'Yangon ... is without electricity and without water, so I don't see how you can conduct a referendum under those conditions,' one Yangon-based Western diplomat said.

'It's a catastrophe,' he added. 'Almost all the electricity poles were blown down. It will take weeks to repair.'

The Irrawaddy Division, Myanmar's traditional rice bowl, was among the regions hardest hit by Nargis although details about its effects there remained sketchy.

Myanmar's third most populous city of Pathein, the Irrawaddy capital, was reportedly inundated by floodwaters, causing untold damage and deaths.

The fertile, low-lying division is Myanmar's chief rice-growing area.

'The rice was high,' a Western diplomat said. 'This will certainly affect the rice crop negatively.'

The disaster has already caused sharp rises Monday in fuel and food prices in Yangon.

A bottle of water was selling for 1,000 kyat, compared with 350 kyats last week, while the minimum bus fare had jumped from 50 kyats to 500 kyats in the city, a Yangon resident said.

Last week's black-market rate for the kyat was 1,120 to the dollar.