May

7

Disease stalks survivors of huge Myanmar cyclone

Filed Under World News | Posted By Jennifer Sullivan |

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m1.jpgDisease, starvation and thirst pose a major danger to hundreds of thousands of survivors of Cyclone Nargis, aid agencies stated on Wednesday, urging Myanmar’s military rulers to open the doors to international humanitarian assistance.

With 22,500 dead and 41,000 missing, the majority of them from a massive storm surge that washed over the Irrawaddy delta, it is the major shocking cyclone to hit Asia since 1991, when 143,000 people died in neighboring Bangladesh.

“Time is of the essence,” Ann Veneman, Executive Director of the United Nations children’s fund UNICEF, stated in a statement. “In circumstances such as these, children are extremely susceptible to disease and food shortage and they require instant help to stay alive.”

Aid officials say hundreds of thousands will have been left homeless in the immense swamplands of the delta, where mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue are widespread.

There will also be the danger of cholera and chronic diarrhea from dirty water and dead body decomposing in the tropical heat up and dampness of Southeast Asia.

Governments and aid agencies begged the reserved government to unwind their tense hold to let humanitarian aid into Myanmar, which has been ruled by the military for 46 years.

It has been under U.S. financial sanctions from 2003; however, Washington on Tuesday lifted an aid necessity to attempt and makes it easier to offer straight help.

RICE HANDOUTS

The U.N.’s World Food Programme started distributing rice in Yangon, the major city and former capital, where people are having to line up for water and food costs are skyrocketing.

“The food security condition in the country, which was already brutal, is likely to turn into more acute,” the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told in its latest assessment of the ruin.

The first batch of above $10 million of foreign aid reached from Thailand but a lack of specialized equipment slowed giving out. Two more aid flights are about to land from India early on Wednesday. UNICEF told it was supplying aid.

In spite of the disaster’s size, France stated the former Burma’s ruling generals were still placing countless conditions on aid.



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