danwashburn

May 12 08

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Burma: "Worse than even our previously pessimistic estimates"

As I have told you before, my in-laws were born and raised in Burma. So we've been getting regular email updates on the post-cyclone situation there. Here is one email, dated May 10, from someone on the ground in Burma:

Today is Referendum day in the rest of Myanmar. The cyclone-affected areas have had their voting day changed to May 24th. Voting actually started around May 1st, when Yangon City Development Committee employees and their families were asked to vote. Yesterday, people at the ministries in Nay Pyi Daw were gathered together, lectured by their ministers as to how they would vote ("YES") and then given their ballots. The ballots have boxes for ticking "yes" or "no" on the one side. On the reverse side of the same piece of paper, the voter must provide their full name, address, father's name, national registration number AND signature!!! Are you surprised that the referendum is the starting point of my email and that I'm not focusing on the humanitarian crisis? I thought I'd try to share with you the experience of bewilderment many people here are feeling at the government's continued focus on the referendum process, rather than prioritizing other, more obvious needs here at the moment. If you wish to see the type of news coming out of the government's New Light of Myanmar newspaper here, you can take a look at their website for enlightenment.

The post-cyclone situation here is worse than even our previously pessimistic estimates. The total worldwide deaths from the 2004 tsunami reached 220,000 and the total homeless population was 1.5 million. Unofficial but credible estimates here on the ground say that the total numbers of dead and of homeless from the cyclone now exceed those 2004 worldwide tsunami figures. Information trickling in from the villages in the Delta area indicates it is normal for a community to have lost 50-60% of its population by now. It appears that the smaller the village, the larger the percentage of deaths. One member of our team met with the single survivor from a village that used to be home to 100 people. The death rates appear to be higher among women and children than men. Much of this simply has to do with physical strength. Women and children in the Delta were less able to climb and cling to high places during the surges of waves, while men more often had the strength to hang on and survive.

The news reports about the stymied access and distribution of humanitarian aid and supplies that people are hearing outside are corroborated by the UN inside Myanmar. The good news is that quite a number of international and large local agencies are starting to be able to have a presence in the few main towns of the Delta. The bad news is many of the international personnel and supplies aren't allowed to go outside the major towns and we are now a full week into the cyclone's aftermath. The Myanmar Red Cross is able to provide assistance without any problems except limited resources. Local organizations and quickly organized groups of local volunteers are able to get out into the more remote areas, as long as they travel in small groups and do not try to transport much in the way of supplies. The less obvious they are, the better. This means that for a health team you all heard about earlier this week, we can now happily confirm that they have been able to see and treat more than two thousand patients since Wednesday late afternoon when they first arrived and have also handed out lots of WaterGard. They will plan to send a few people back soon to restock and then will send the new supplies back out in small batches, so that the supplies are not "lost". As always, you can never say never in Myanmar.

I don't want you to think that no one is successfully able to provide any assistance. One international agency was successful in sending a hundred ton boat to a remote area, loaded with supplies, because monks and community leaders in the area arranged access. Another agency anticipates being able to send a 500 ton boat out with supplies within the next day. There are many international and local agencies that had Delta-based field offices previous to the cyclone's arrival, and they are scrambling to remain in place, establish a supply chain and provide assistance to those near their locations. There are also "camps" being created in safe areas, both by government and by local organizations. Many displaced people are making their way to those camps, where supplies are being sent. The government camps are large and appear to be better supplied, while camps sponsored by local organizations are smaller and may not be as well supplied. Reports say these camps are growing by the hour. Most worrisome is that many people can't make it to the camps and they are continuing to live out in the open and scavenge for their daily needs, which means their survival is more tenuous.

Having confirmation now that supporting local organizations works to get the assistance where it is needed and where other assistance may not as easily reach (small assistance compared to the total need, but more certain to get where some of the bigger aid efforts may not reach, etc.), we have been in discussions with more local organizations that are now preparing to go out with their own initiatives. We will coordinate with them to pull together the material and financial resources for their efforts, but they will conduct their work directly themselves. We continue to try to be true to HOPE's mission here in Myanmar - to support local organizations and groups to be more effective in their own work with local communities. Several of the HOPE team members will be going out or have already gone out with local groups to be involved in providing more direct support. Dave and I will stay behind and continue to provide logistical support to the efforts we identify as a team. Keeping us out of the visible equation reduces the profile of the relief efforts by these local groups, and therefore makes their success more likely.

Please forgive us for not answering individual emails right now. Our office has a water supply now, - we have joined with other building tenants to pay for a well to be dug - and the diesel situation has eased, so we can run the office generator, but the office is still without phone or internet. We continue to be without electricity, phone or internet at our house, although city water is trickling into our tank on a daily basis now. We are installing a treadle pump at the house so we can supply water to the whole house without requiring electricity. Our internet access is all still through the UNDP office, where Dave goes almost daily, with just enough time to send off the emails I compose and handle anything that is very urgent. He doesn't even end up reading most of the emails coming in right now, because there isn't time in the day to do everything that needs to be done. Given the enormous piles of debris lining the roads and compounds in our neighborhood and the central Yangon townships, we have wondered when the burning would start. Today was starting to be that moment – there was lots of smoke in the air until about 5 minutes ago, when a deluge hit. People who are trying to dry out their rice to save it now have clean drinking water, but their rice is wet again, and for those living in the open, the rain adds to their hardships. It's very hard to know what to wish for.

Hope this information provides a little insight to how things feel from inside, at least from this foreigner's perspective.

# · Notes · (1) · 05.12.08