Myanmar cyclone toll increases to 84,500

Myanmar said yesterday that 84,500 people perished in last month's cyclone, up from its last announcement that 77,700 had died in the devastating storm.

Meanwhile, a representative from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the regional bloc that includes Myanmar, said a recent assessment tour found the needs of the storm's survivors were being met.

Deputy Foreign Minister Kyaw Thu said in a speech that the official death toll now stood at 84,537 dead, with 53,836 still missing.

The update was the first since May 17, when officials said 77,738 had died and 55,917 were missing.

Nearly two months after Cyclone Nargis left up to 2.4 million people destitute, a joint assessment team has recently completed its work and a new appeal for foreign aid is expected in July.

The increased total represents victims of the storm itself rather then any new casualties due to disease or starvation in the cyclone's aftermath, the deputy foreign minister said, stating that the assessment found no such post-cyclone deaths.

"On the part of the government, there have been less and less requests for emergency assistance coming from communities and local authorities," he added.

"Various reports indicate that the worst of the crisis may have stabilized, although it is by no means over."

Foreign aid staffers have not yet produced their own estimates of the dead and missing, some of them citing lack of access, personnel and the difficulty of traveling to many remote areas.

Cyclone Nargis on May 2-3 cut a swath of destruction through the delta and the region around the country's largest city, Yangon.

A major international effort is under way to aid some 2.4 million survivors of the natural disaster, the worst in Myanmar's modern history.

This includes a special three-party task force that has completed an assessment of the damage and needs of survivors.

A final report on its findings is due around the third week of July.

The report is widely expected to put an optimistic light on the crisis, while presenting some criticism of the regime for hindering the international aid effort.

Some 300 representatives of the United Nations, the Myanmar government and ASEAN have been traveling to villages in the delta to accumulate information.

"Access was unlimited and unfettered. The basics needs of the victims are being met for their early recovery," Surin Pitsuwan, ASEAN secretary-general and head of the bloc's humanitarian task force in Myanmar, said at a meeting yesterday.

Surin said Myanmar should be able to rebuild its "traditional role as the rice bowl not only of Myanmar but of Southeast Asia."

Reports from international relief agencies indicate the country may face acute rice shortages because of the devastation wrought to agricultural land in the delta.

Myanmar has not been the rice bowl of the region since the 1960s.

The latest United Nations report said yesterday that to date 1.3 million people are estimated to have been reached by international aid groups, the Red Cross and UN workers.

Agencies

(China Daily 06/25/2008 page11)