Burma Cyclone: Nargis rips through Rangoon

The historic capital city of Myanmar, Yangon has been hit by a terrible cyclone. At least 200 are reported dead, but by the sounds of it, the actual death toll might well be ten or even one hundred times higher. From Reuters/NY Times:

• "Utter war zone," one Yangon-based diplomat said in an email to Reuters in Bangkok. "Trees across all streets. Utility poles down. Hospitals devastated. Clean water scarce."

• "I have never seen anything like it," one retired government worker told Reuters. "It reminded me of when Hurricane Katrina hit the United States."

• "It was a direct hit on a major city," said Terje Skavdal, regional head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).

Update 22:4o in Jakarta, 22:10 in Yangon, Reuters reports:

The death toll from a tropical cyclone that tore through Yangon and Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta rose to 351 on Sunday, a government official said, citing state media reports in the remote capital, Naypyidaw.

State television, which was still off air in Yangon after the storm, said 20,000 homes had been destroyed on the island of Haingyi in the Andaman Sea, the first part of the country to be hit by Cyclone Nagris, the official said.

As many as 90,000 people were reported to have been left homeless on the island, he added.

Comment: The people of Rangoon were already living on the edge. Burma is isolated. Now what will the regime do? This is a major catastrophe. An AFP report filed 7 hours raises more questions:

"A tea shop owner told me that many people in a Yangon suburb need urgent help for food and accommodation," one food vendor said. "Some children are not even wearing clothes."

Myanmar's infrastructure has been run into the ground by decades of mismanagement by the military, which has ruled since 1962.

It was not immediately known whether damage from the storm would affect next Saturday's referendum on a new constitution, which the ruling junta says will pave the way for democratic elections in 2010.