New storm head toward cyclone-devastated Myanmar
Another powerful storm headed toward Myanmar's cyclone-devastated delta, where so little aid has reached that the U.N. warned on Wednesday of a "second wave of deaths" among an estimated 2 million survivors.
The U.S. military's Joint Typhoon Warning Center said there is a good chance that "a significant tropical cyclone" will form within the next 24 hours and head across the Irrawaddy delta area.
The area was pulverized by Cyclone Nargis on May 3, leaving at least 34,273 dead and 27,838 missing, according to the government. The U.N. says the death toll could exceed 100,000. An estimated 2 million survivors of the storm are still in need of emergency aid. But U.N. agencies and other groups have been able to reach only 270,000 people so far.
In a sign that Myanmar may allow outside help, Dr. Thawat Sutharacha of Thailand's Public Health Ministry said Wednesday the junta has given permission to a Thai medical team to go to the cyclone-hit delta.
If the team is able to go as scheduled on Friday, it would be the first foreign aid group to work in the ravaged Irrawaddy delta.
Bottlenecks, poor logistics, limited infrastructure and the military government's refusal to allow foreign aid workers have left most of the delta's survivors living in miserable conditions without food or clean water. The government's efforts have been criticized as woefully slow.
"The government has a responsibility to assist their people in the event of a natural disaster," said Amanda Pitt, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for Humanitarian Affairs.
"We are here to do what we can and facilitate their efforts and scale up their response. It is clearly inadequate and we do not want to see a second wave of death as a result of that not being scaled up," she said.
The news of a second cyclone was not broadcast by Myanmar's state-controlled media. But Yangon residents picked up the news on foreign broadcasts and on the Internet.
"I prayed to the Lord Buddha, 'please save us from another cyclone. Not just me but all of Myanmar,'" said Min Min, a rickshaw driver, whose house was destroyed in Cyclone Nargis. Min Min, his wife and three children now live on their wrecked premises under plastic sheets.
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