Word: delta
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Temples, schools and other buildings still standing in Burma's low-lying delta region are filling up with the sick and the homeless. State media claims that Nargis killed nearly 23,000 people, with more than 40,000 missing; the United Nations estimates some 1.5 million people will be severely affected. But traveling the road to Bogalay-a delta town which lay in the cyclone's path and took its full fury-there is little sign of a major relief operation...
...Rangoon. The road passes through a shattered landscape. The 120 m.p.h winds uprooted trees, snapped concrete poles carrying power lines, and blew the tops off the golden pagodas. Structures of brick and concrete are missing their roofs. Houses of wood or straw are all but destroyed. In stricken delta towns like Kungyangon, Dedaye and Pyapon, almost every structure is damaged, many beyond repair. In Bogalay itself, no building is untouched. The streets are flanked by broken power lines, fallen trees and other debris...
...Kyaw Mya, the ex-soldier, and tens of thousands like him await basic supplies. Yet the day before, Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein, who is overseeing Burma's relief effort, "presented 20 sets of TV, 10 DVD players, and 10 satellite receivers" to entertain storm victims elsewhere in the delta, reported the junta newspaper The New Light of Myanmar. "The government is not coming," summarizes Kyaw Mya. "Foreign countries are not coming...
...people of the delta fend for themselves. Farming families dry their recently harvested rice on nets spread out on the Bogalay road, and hang their damp clothes on the dead power lines. In the Bogalay area, the harvest was almost complete when Nargis struck, although much of it now lies unhusked in cyclone-crippled rice mills...
...When night falls, the delta is swallowed by the darkness. Candles burn dimly in the ruins. Most of Rangoon is also without power, and only the well-lit Shwedagon, the nation's most scared pagoda, is visible from a distance. Otherwise, Burma's largest city?a city of 4 million people?is barely a flicker on the horizon...