A cyclone that ripped across Burma left a trail of devastation, killing more than 350 people, virtually flattening two towns and damaging at least 20,000 homes.
Cyclone Nargis, packing winds of 120mph and torrential rains, struck with little warning yesterday. The scale of the damage to the isolated country, run by a military regime, only began to emerge today.
Of the dead, 162 lived on Haing Gyi island, off the country's south-west coast. Many of the others died in the low-lying Irrawaddy delta. Seventy-five per cent of buildings in the Irrawaddy's Labutta township collapsed.
The former capital, Rangoon, was battered for hours by fierce gusts that tore hundreds of roofs off even the sturdiest buildings and downed power lines, lamp-posts and trees, blocking many roads.
One diplomat told Reuters in a sparse email that the scene was like an "utter war zone". "Trees across all streets. Utility poles down. Hospitals devastated. Clean water scarce," he reported.
The country's already shaky communications were cut completely, with telephone, mobile phones and normal internet down, making it almost impossible to get a true picture of the catastrophe.
In Rangoon, where at least 19 people died, electricity was off today and clean water in short supply. When residents ventured out to find food and supplies to patch up their homes, they were outraged to find prices had doubled overnight as shops had no clue when they might be able to restock.
"I have never seen anything like it," one retired government worker said. "It reminded me of when Hurricane Katrina hit the United States."
Official newspapers that appeared in Rangoon today said only a quarter of the houses in the towns of Lapputa and Kyaik, deep in the rice-growing belt and reachable only by boats, remained standing.
Weather experts predicted Nargis would generate a storm surge of 3.5 metres (12ft), leaving the low-lying delta especially vulnerable.
US military satellite images showed the Irrawaddy delta, where most people live in flimsy bamboo houses, had borne the brunt of the cyclone's force.
Nargis had been gathering force in the tropical waters of the Bay of Bengal for several days before it slammed into Rangoon.
"It was a direct hit on a major city," said Terje Skavdal, regional
head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
"The government did warn people to stay inside and that might have had
an impact, but the material damage is enormous for sure."
Piers and jetties were ripped loose in Rangoon harbour, where four ships sank, while all flights into the city were diverted to Mandalay and the airport remained closed last night.
One Rangoon resident described the devastation, saying: "Everything is
wrecked: roofs were torn off houses, satellite dishes were down,
windows were broken in shopping malls, roadside billboards have
fallen. The satellite dishes on the UN building were blown away.
Everything's in a mess."
The cyclone, the worst in several decades, came ahead of a referendum - set for next Saturday - on a military-backed draft constitution, due to
pave the way for elections in 2010.
