Cyclone death toll passes 10,000

Residents say the ruling military is clearing streets only where the elite live.

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar’s government said Monday more than 10,000 people were feared killed in a cyclone that unleashed 12-foot tidal surges and high winds that swept away bamboo homes in low-lying coastal regions, cutting off electricity and water in the country’s largest city.

The ruling junta, an authoritarian regime which cut the nation off from the international community for decades, appealed for foreign aid to help in the recovery from Saturday’s disaster, the country’s deadliest storm on record.

The casualty count has been rising quickly as authorities reach hard-hit islands and villages in the Irrawaddy delta, the country’s major rice-producing region, which bore the brunt of Cyclone Nargis’s 120-mile-per hour winds.

Residents of Yangon, the former capital of 6.5 million, said they were angry the government failed to adequately warn them of the approaching storm and has so far done little to alleviate their plight.

“The government misled people. They could have warned us about the severity of the coming cyclone so we could be better prepared,” said Thin Thin, a grocery store owner.

Some in Yangon complained the 400,000-strong military was only clearing streets where the ruling elite resided, while leaving residents, including Buddhist monks, to cope on their own against the huge tangles of uprooted trees.

“There are some army trucks out to clear the roads, but most of the work was done with a dah [knife] by the people. Some of these tree trunks are 4-feet thick,” said Barry Broman, a retired U.S. State Department officer who was in Yangon when the cyclone struck. “Thousands of trees were uprooted. All the roads were blocked by the trees.”

If the numbers are accurate, the death toll would be the highest from a natural disaster in southeast Asia since the tsunami of December 2004, which killed 229,866 people as it devastated coastlines in Indonesia, Thailand and other parts of southeast and south Asia. In the wake of the tsunami, an extensive early warning system was established in the Pacific region.

A Myanmar state radio station said 3,939 people perished as high winds and huge storm surges battered coastal areas, with another 2,879 people reported missing in a single delta town, Bogalay, 60 miles south of Yangon.

However, Foreign Minister Nyan Win told Yangon-based diplomats the death toll could rise to more than 10,000 in the region, which sits barely above sea level, according to Asian diplomats who attended the meeting.

Hundreds of thousands were left homeless and without clean drinking water, said Richard Horsey, a spokesman in Bangkok for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The diplomats said they were told Myanmar, also known as Burma, welcomed international humanitarian aid.