Word: delta
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Thursday, a few government trucks were ferrying water and medicine to the delta from the commercial capital of Rangoon, which was also hit by the cyclone. But a few dozen trucks will do little to allay the vast destruction. In Bogalay, once a prosperous trading port, one third of buildings have collapsed. At a jetty along the Irrawady, two nearly week-old bodies, an adult and a child, lay among the storm's detritus of plywood, bamboo and coconut husks. Near the corpses, people went about their lives, tying bamboo poles together to build temporary lodging and jostling for limited...
...example, was closed on the afternoon of May 2 because of the cyclone. But there has never been such a destructive storm in living memory in Burma. Nearly everyone ignored the government warning and went to sleep as usual in their flimsy shacks that night. By 9 p.m., delta residents realized this was no normal storm. Ei Phyu Aung, a 14-year-old girl, recalls her house suddenly floating away in what locals estimate was a twelve-foot wave. She slipped out a window and grabbed onto a coconut palm. By mid-morning the next day, the water had washed...
...survivors have taken refuge in nearby monasteries and schools. By late week the government has sent buses to take survivors to larger towns further inland. But many refugees were unwilling to leave their locality for camps where disease can spread quickly. Late at night, deep in the delta, a convoy of 13 buses headed back empty to the town of Maubin. No one had taken the military's offer of shelter. But in the town of Kyaiklat, 12 camps were full, each teeming with around 2,000 refugees. Ma Sein and her four children were holed up in a monastery...
...spotted at least two dozen bodies of men, women and children during the short voyage from the battered delta town of Pyapon to Myint Swe's village of Myinkakon, where last weekend Cylone Nargis claimed a hundred lives and flattened most houses. Today, six days later, government aid has finally reached the village: officials gave each household about two kilos of rice - barely enough to feed a family for a day. Nearby villages have received nothing...
...cyclone raged for 12 hours, recalls boatman Myint Swe, and for three days afterwards the Pyapon River was clogged with bodies. Like hundreds of other delta villages, Myinkakon had few sturdy buildings to shelter in and no higher ground to flee to. And anyway, says Myint Swe, there was no way to outrun the storm surge, a wall of fast-moving water taller than the tallest man, which raced out of the darkness without warning and swept away tens of thousands of lives across the low-lying region...