RCA - RCWS: Myanmar Hit by Cyclone

Church World Service Responds

Profiteering is already starting to grip those coping in the storm’s aftermath, with prices on food, fuel and building supplies shooting up 300 percent. The general secretary of the Myanmar Council of Churches reports communication abilities throughout Myanmar have been compromised.

Immediate relief operations are underway with a comprehensive assessment on-going. The CWS Asia Regional Office is in direct contact with the Myanmar Council of Churches and in coming days this initial appeal will be expanded to reflect needed support for longer-term recovery efforts of the Myanmar Council of Churches and its members.

Reformed Church World Service will assist CWS in their efforts.

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Myanmar's military junta believes at least 10,000 people died in a cyclone that ripped through the Irrawaddy delta, triggering a massive international aid response for the southeast Asian nation.

"The basic message was that they believe the provisional death toll was about 10,000 with 3,000 missing," a Yangon-based diplomat told Reuters in Bangkok, summarising a briefing from Foreign Minister Nyan Win. "It's a very serious toll."

The scale of the disaster from Saturday's devastating cyclone drew a rare acceptance of outside help from the diplomatically isolated generals, who spurned such approaches in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

U.N. officials say hundreds of thousands are without shelter or drinking water. The casualty count has been rising quickly as authorities reach hard-hit islands and villages in the Irrawaddy delta, the former "rice bowl of Asia" which bore the brunt of Cyclone Nargis's 190 km (120 miles) per hour winds.

After getting a "careful green light" from the government, the United Nations said it was pulling out all the stops to send in emergency aid such as food, clean water, blankets and plastic sheeting.

"The U.N. will begin preparing assistance now to be delivered and transported to Myanmar as quickly as possible," World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman Paul Risley said.

The United States, which has imposed sanctions on the junta, said it had provided funds through the WFP and other aid groups.

Two Indian naval ships loaded with food, tents, blankets, clothing and medicines would sail for Yangon soon, Indian's Ministry of External Affairs said.

Thailand responded to the disaster, sending a C-130 transport plane loaded with food and medicine to Yangon after the airport reopened on Monday, Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama said.

The U.N. office in Yangon said there was an urgent need for plastic sheeting, water purification tablets, cooking equipment, mosquito nets, health kits and food.

It said the situation outside Yangon was "critical, with shelter and safe water being the principal immediate needs".

In the former capital Yangon, food and fuel prices soared as aid agencies scrambled to deliver emergency supplies and assess the damage in the five declared disaster zones, home to 24 million people.

Clean water was scarce. Most shops had sold out of candles and batteries and there was no word when power would be restored.

Long queues formed at the few open petrol stations. The price of a gallon of petrol has doubled on the black market, while egg prices have tripled since Saturday.

"How many people are affected? We know that it's in the six figures," Richard Horsey, of the U.N. disaster response office, told Reuters after an emergency aid meeting in Bangkok on Monday before the state TV announcement.

"We know that it's several hundred thousand needing shelter and clean drinking water, but how many hundred thousand we just don't know."

In Yangon, many roofs were ripped off even sturdy buildings, suggesting damage would be severe in the shanty towns that lie on the outskirts of the city of 5 million people.

This report taken from Reuters AlertNet; written by Aung Hla Tun and Darren Schuettler with additional reporting by Ed Cropley. Images are also courtesy of Reuters AlertNet.

Myanmar Hit by Cyclone: Thousands Killed, Hundreds of Thousands Homeless

Church World Service Responds