A year after the devastating cyclone that laid waste to large swaths of Myanmar, more than half a million people are still living in makeshift shacks that are unlikely to withstand the imminent monsoons, aid agencies working in the region said.
Sea water has inundated wells throughout the Irrawaddy delta and turned almost 800,000 hectares of Myanmar’s most fertile paddy fields into salt-contaminated wastelands.
Aid coordinators say 240,000 people in remote villages still rely on drinking water that is delivered by boat in large rubber bladders. In some places diesel-powered filtration plants work around the clock, rendering brackish estuary water drinkable.
DEVASTATION
When Cylone Nargis hit Myanmar on May 2 last year, killing at least 138,000 people and devastating the lives of millions more, the refusal of the ruling junta to allow foreign aid into the affected area left observers pessimistic about the future of those living there.
For more than three weeks after the disaster Myanmar’s generals refused to grant visas to foreign relief workers and blocked aid from reaching the delta, the worst-hit region.
The government eventually agreed to allow emergency teams into the delta after intervention by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, but skepticism remained about whether aid really would reach the 2.4 million people severely affected by the cyclone.
Nevertheless, a year on from the disaster, foreign NGOs working on the ground say the relief effort has gone far better than they dared hope.
ACHIEVEMENTS
“What has been achieved over the last year has exceeded what anybody predicted would be possible,” said Paul Sender, Merlin’s country director for Myanmar, based in Yangon.
“There was initially a lot of concern about whether anybody would be able to work here, or monitor where the aid was going, but we have found that the aid has been getting through to the people who need it,” he said.
Sender, who is also head of the UN’s “health cluster” in Myanmar, said the predicted outbreak of malnutrition and disease had not happened.
“Figures from the clinics show there hasn’t been a significant increase either in the past year, which reflects the fact that there are health provisions in place,” he said.
Dan Collison, director of Save the Children’s emergency program in Myanmar, said: “Not one Save the Children truck was stopped from reaching its destination, and in those first few weeks we reached 160,000 people, even when we weren’t supposed to.”
“We have no evidence at all that the regime confiscated or misappropriated aid, even in the early days,” Collison said.
OBSTRUCTION
This optimistic view is not shared by everyone.
A report by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in the US this year, which collated information from interviews by local researchers working undercover in the delta, found “systematic obstruction of aid, willful acts of theft and sale of relief supplies, forced relocation, and the use of forced labor for reconstruction projects, including forced child labor.”
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was