Emergency aid trickles into Burma from the region

ANCHOR: And now we have any update on the situation in Burma. Asian countries have sent aid to Burma, where the cyclone
death toll has hit over 22,000 with than 40,000 are missing.


STORY: According to the World Food Program (WFP), one million people may be homeless after Cyclone Nargis hit the Irrawaddy river delta of Burma. WFP said some villages have been almost totally eradicated. This has been the most devastating cyclone in Asia since 1991 when a storm killed 140,000 in neighbouring Bangladesh.

Singapore, a close neighbour, sent boxes filled with medical supplies, drinking water, emergency food and tents. Australia will be sending aid to Burma as well.

Disease, hunger and thirst pose as major threats to hundreds of thousands of survivors of Cyclone Nargis. In one town alone, Bogalay, 10,000 people were killed. The Thai Red Cross has responded to the cyclone in Burma by sending food, medicines and plastic bags. Thailand has also prepared rapid medical aid teams, to head to the hardest hit areas.

[Doctor Pran Boonyawongviroj, Thailand Permanent Secretary of Public Health]:
"Thailand has prepared 20 teams of rapid medical response to
control communicable diseases and are ready to be dispatched whenever
requested."

In Rangoon, roofs were ripped off even sturdy buildings, suggesting severe damage to the shantytowns that lie on the outskirts of the city, where five million people live.

Reflecting the scale of the crisis, the junta said it would postpone by
two weeks a constitutional referendum in the worst-hit areas.
But the referendum, part of the army's much-criticized "roadmap to democracy", would proceed as planned elsewhere on Saturday.

Members of the Free Burma Coalition in the Phlippines said the state should loosen restrictions on aid workers and should focus on humanitarian relief instead of a referendum, since hundreds of thousands will be unlikely to participate in the political process.

[Egoy Bans, spokesman for the Free Burma Coalition]:
"People are in a very volatile and vulnerable situation and they
are easily, they can be easily coerced into voting yes to approve the
constitution."

Bans also said they fear that politics could come into play in distributing the relief aid.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• ntd
• emergency
• burma
• asia
• cyclone
• World
• food
• program
• WFP
• Nargis

[deliousluna]

This news is so sad--The possibility of permanently destroyed rice fields is truly terrible. With rice supplies short everywhere this is a major blow to future food prospects for Myanmar. I hope they find the strength to overcome this hardship.I heard the red cross is doing a great job-along with others.Done properly and actually delivering it instead of being dumped at an airport where most of it would end up with the corrupt Government.