Delay proves fatal

Delay proves fatal

Scripps Howard News Service: The Indian Meteorological Service says it gave the Myanmar government 48 hours warning of the arrival of Cyclone Nargis and an accurate prediction of its track and its severity.

With two days warning, residents of low-lying areas could have been evacuated and others warned to seek shelter and stockpile food and water. That may not have been a perfect precaution but it’s better than the outcome. Relief workers say the death toll is likely 50,000 and that 2 million to 3 million may be homeless.

The ruling military junta insists it did try to warn the populace. If so, it did a miserable job of it. Even as food riots were breaking out in several cities, one of the ruling generals was quoted by state-run television as saying the situation was “returning to normal.”

This shows an appalling lack of urgency since hard on the heels of a natural disaster, especially in a steamy, swampy tropical country, come disease, dehydration and starvation.

Help is available. But according to press accounts, Myanmar seems unable or unwilling to issue visas to foreign relief workers and the arrival of aid has been stymied by the government’s insistence that its own workers distribute the aid.