SEATTLE - World Concern's staff in Myanmar are facing another significant challenge to getting aid to families in need: a second tropical cyclone forecasted in the same region. World Concern International Program Director Meredith Long said, "A second major storm, even if it's mild, will continue to delay relief aid, significantly increasing the risk of disease. Another surge of salt water will further contaminate water wells and delay the planting season, which could spell starvation in the region."
World Concern relief workers described devastation and resilience after delivering aid to previously unreached villages in Myanmar's Pyapon region. When they arrived in Pyapon, carrying plastic sheeting, Water Guard purification treatment, dried biscuits, rice and medicine, they discovered that most houses were damaged or destroyed. They distributed some aid in Pyapon, and then delivered the remaining supplies to nearby remote villages by boat.
In the smaller villages, the cyclone had flattened nearly all of the houses. Many people along the river were rebuilding using debris and any bamboo they could find. Some were cleaning household items and clothing muddied by the floodwaters; others were trying to dry their rice stores in between showers of rain.
"In the river, we saw many dead animals: buffalo, pigs, dogs, chickens," reported one World Concern fieldworker. "We also saw human bodies. I have to say that after the first five human bodies I just stopped counting. It was very distressing... that someone would be washing in the river only 10 meters away from a dead buffalo or that 50 meters away there was a dead child floating in the river. No one was collecting the dead bodies."
A major concern for the people in the Ayeyarwady Delta region is that the storm destroyed much of the rice seed that must be planted by June. During the recovery process, families will need rice seed, farm implements and draught animals. The loss of a whole rice season could bring long-term food shortages and skyrocketing food prices.
World Concern, a Shoreline-based relief and development organization, has been working in Myanmar since 1995. The organization is taking a lead role in providing emergency relief assistance and developing long-term recovery plans with established in country and international non-governmental partners.
Regionally and worldwide, World Concern has directed emergency response and rehabilitation programming for more than 20 years. In Myanmar, World Concern is part of a coalition of international aid organizations called the Global Relief Alliance (GRA). Together, they are also providing relief in Sudan and Chad.
For updated information, including how people can help, please go to www.worldconcern.org.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
A Red Cross worker delivers rice to a shelter for displaced people affected by Cyclone Nargis on the edge of Yangon May 12, 2008. Between 1.2 and 1.9 million people have ...
