Burmese Cyclone

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The cyclone that hit Myanmar (Burma) on Saturday has claimed 4,000 lives and left 3,000 people still missing.

Almost 4,000 people were killed and nearly 3,000 others are unaccounted for after a devastating cyclone in Myanmar, a state radio station said Monday.

Foreign Minister Nyan Win told foreign diplomats at a briefing that the death toll could reach 10,000, according to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was held behind closed doors.

Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit the Southeast Asian country, also known as Burma, early Saturday with winds of up to 120 mph, leaving hundreds of thousands of people homeless.

The government had previously put the death toll countrywide at 351 before increasing it Monday to 3,939.

The radio station broadcasting from the country’s capital, Naypyitaw, said that 2,879 more people are unaccounted for in a single town, Bogalay, in the country’s low-lying Irrawaddy River delta area where the storm wreaked the most havoc.

The United States State Department has allocated $250,000 toward a relief effort, but the Burmese government has not given the U.S. Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) permission to enter the country. The Myanmar government, however, are welcoming the U.N. for help with disaster assistance and are asking for much needed supplied such as: roofing materials, plastic sheets and temporary tents, medicine, water purifying tablets, blankets and mosquito nets.

There seems to be no safeguards in place against price gouging either. When the cyclone took out one city’s electrical supply, the price for candles and gas doubled. The price of food soared as well, as people were desperately searching for something to eat after the disaster. The government is, however, going forward with a memorandum to change the country’s constitution. They won’t stop the outrageous price increases, but they’ll go ahead with voting on this issue. I would think that the government of Burma would be more concerned with making sure their people have the necessary supplies for survival.

So, what exactly is a cyclone? From Wikipedia:

Depending on their location and strength, tropical cyclones are referred to by other names, such as hurricane, typhoon, tropical storm, cyclonic storm, tropical depression and simply cyclone.

While tropical cyclones can produce extremely powerful winds and torrential rain, they are also able to produce high waves and damaging storm surge. They develop over large bodies of warm water, and lose their strength if they move over land. This is the reason coastal regions can receive significant damage from a tropical cyclone, while inland regions are relatively safe from receiving strong winds. Heavy rains, however, can produce significant flooding inland, and storm surges can produce extensive coastal flooding up to 40 kilometres (25 mi) from the coastline.

It seems the only difference between a Tropical Cyclone and a hurricane is from where the storm originates.

This particular cyclone, dubbed “Tropical Cyclone Nargis”, ravaged this Southeast Asian country with winds up to 120 mph and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless.

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