Bush administration moves to exploit Burma cyclone disaster

Wednesday, May 7, 2008 :Another huge tragedy has engulfed an impoverished Asian country. Tens of thousands are dead, many more are missing and hundreds of thousands are homeless after tropical cyclone Nargis lashed the western coastal areas of Burma on Saturday. Winds of up to 190 kilometres an hour and a storm surge of water up to 4 metres levelled houses and other buildings, severed transport links and communication, and left millions without clean water, food, shelter and medicine.

The official death toll is rising rapidly and reached 22,000 last night. Another 41,000 are listed as missing. The full extent of the disaster is yet to be revealed as rescue teams and aid workers make their way into the devastated areas. The Burmese military junta is maintaining a tight control over news filtering out from the country and is reluctant to allow international aid teams into the affected regions.

The most damaged area is the low-lying Irrawaddy deltahome to an estimated 6 million people. The former capital of Rangoon, with a population of 6.5 million, was also badly hit. A UN satellite image showed storm damage concentrated over a 30,000 square kilometre area along the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Martaban coastlinesa region that is less than 5 percent of Burmas landmass but where nearly a quarter of the countrys 57 million people reside.

The delta is crisscrossed with rivers and canals making transport and communications difficult. Many areas are accessible only by boat or helicopter. The worst affected will have been the poor, whose flimsy homes constructed out of bamboo and roofed with thatch or tin sheeting will have been immediately swept away.

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