Cyclone Giri Photos
Narinjara News
Prayer ceremonies were held at home and abroad to observe the anniversary of Cyclone Giri that slammed into the coast of western Burma's Arakan State on the 22nd of October 2010.
The ceremonies were held in Kyaukpru and Taungok in Arakan State and in Mae Sot and Phukhet in Thailand.
U Aung Marm Oo, the director of the Arakan Human Rights Organization, said a prayer ceremony was held in a Buddhist monastery in Maepa Village in Thailand’s Mae Sot in order to make people more aware if what had happened during Cyclone Giri.
“We hold this ceremony especially to draw attention from the ethnic Burmese community as well as from the international community, and to make them aware of what really happened during that cyclone in Arakan State”, said Aung Marm Oo.
Attendees at the ceremony lit candles and prayed silently for a while according to their various religious faiths, for those who were killed and affected by the cyclone, and then speeches were given.
U Khine Oo Maung, the director of a migrant school on the Thai-Burmese border, said the natural calamity came as a result of damaging the natural environment, in his speech at the ceremony.
“Natural disasters were very rare in our childhood in Arakan State, but they are now quite frequently occurring because the natural environment that was a natural shield to such disasters has been badly damaged due to the greedy exploitation of natural resources by the Burmese military dictators in our region”, said Khine Oo Maung.
U Shwe Nhin, a Karen freedom fighter and headmaster of the migrant school, also spoke in the ceremony and said that he prays every Sunday and would continue his prayers, hoping that all people in Burma will be free from natural disasters and oppressed lives, and for peace and development in the country.
Videos and slideshows of photos from the Giri affected areas were presented in the ceremony in Mae Sot and over 120 people, including representatives of the Arakanese and other ethnic organizations, individuals and migrant workers attended in the ceremony.
A prayer ceremony was held in memory of the Giri Cyclone by the Laywady Arakanese Social Organization in Phuket in Thailand as well. “We hold this ceremony to mourn and pray for those who were killed and badly affected by Cyclone Giri on this day last year," said Ko Soe Myint, the president of the Laywady Organization. Mourning and prayer ceremonies were also held on the anniversary of Cyclone Giri in Kyaukpru and Taungok in Arakan State.
Cyclone Giri hit hardest on the townships of Kyaukpru, Mraybon, Pauktaw and Ann in Arakan State on 22 October 2011, leaving nearly 100 people killed, 70,975 peoples homeless and over 2, 60,000 affected.
Prayer ceremonies were held at home and abroad to observe the anniversary of Cyclone Giri that slammed into the coast of western Burma's Arakan State on the 22nd of October 2010.
U Aung Marm Oo, the director of the Arakan Human Rights Organization, said a prayer ceremony was held in a Buddhist monastery in Maepa Village in Thailand’s Mae Sot in order to make people more aware if what had happened during Cyclone Giri.
“We hold this ceremony especially to draw attention from the ethnic Burmese community as well as from the international community, and to make them aware of what really happened during that cyclone in Arakan State”, said Aung Marm Oo.
Attendees at the ceremony lit candles and prayed silently for a while according to their various religious faiths, for those who were killed and affected by the cyclone, and then speeches were given.
U Khine Oo Maung, the director of a migrant school on the Thai-Burmese border, said the natural calamity came as a result of damaging the natural environment, in his speech at the ceremony.
“Natural disasters were very rare in our childhood in Arakan State, but they are now quite frequently occurring because the natural environment that was a natural shield to such disasters has been badly damaged due to the greedy exploitation of natural resources by the Burmese military dictators in our region”, said Khine Oo Maung.
U Shwe Nhin, a Karen freedom fighter and headmaster of the migrant school, also spoke in the ceremony and said that he prays every Sunday and would continue his prayers, hoping that all people in Burma will be free from natural disasters and oppressed lives, and for peace and development in the country.
Videos and slideshows of photos from the Giri affected areas were presented in the ceremony in Mae Sot and over 120 people, including representatives of the Arakanese and other ethnic organizations, individuals and migrant workers attended in the ceremony.
Cyclone Giri hit hardest on the townships of Kyaukpru, Mraybon, Pauktaw and Ann in Arakan State on 22 October 2011, leaving nearly 100 people killed, 70,975 peoples homeless and over 2, 60,000 affected.
Narinjara News
Nava Thakuria
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Even as the military rulers of Burma (Myanmar) completed a general election in November 2010 and a new so-called democratic regime is installed in the poverty stricken country, millions of Burmese are still living in terrible conditions in the cyclones Nargis and Giri affected areas, with many without pure drinking water and food or proper shelter.
Burma receives international media headlines with the flawed constitution and electoral laws that finally prevented the pro-democracy icon Suu Kyi to take part in the November 2010 polls. Her party National League for Democracy, which recorded massive victory in the last general election in 1990- but denied power by the junta- even faced forced dissolution as it did not register with the election commission as a mark of protest. The recent visit of Burmese President Thein Sein to India on October 12 -15, 2011 was an attempt to improve its tie with the largest democracy of the globe and also enhance the Southeast Asian country’s image as a welfare nation. But the ground reality remains almost the same.
Since the day when the devastating tropical cyclone Nargis struck Burma (Myanmar) on May 2, 2008, the women survivors remain worst sufferers. Despite the fact that three full years passed since fateful night, the relief from international agencies, originally blocked by the then military regime, remains sporadic, paltry and tragically late, those all compiled to the continued agony for the poor Burmese people primarily women and children. The cyclone, originating in the Bay of Bengal, ripped a trail of destruction across the Irrawaddy and Rangoon divisions and also ravaged parts of the Bago, Mon and Kayin regions. A water wall of four meters high is said to have rolled some 25 miles inland across the Irrawaddy River Valley, flattening everything in its path. Although the military government reported the final death toll as 84,537, with 53,836 missing, independent estimates are that 140,000 were killed and tens of thousands more have never been found. The cyclone devastated the already spavined social infrastructure, and wiped out paddy fields, which at the time were being readied for the country's primary rice crop. Even one of latest reports of Human Rights Watch, New York reveals that the Burmese government continues to deny basic freedoms and place undue restrictions on aid agencies despite significant gains in rehabilitating areas devastated by the cyclone Nargis. Mentionable is that the then Burmese group of generals named State Peace and Development Council initially did not allow international aids to its own people initially and thus they received condemnation and brickbats from the international community for their callous and cruel attitude.
“For nearly five decades, Burma's military rulers had systematically undermined the interests of their own citizens. It wasn't until days into the tragedy, goaded by international criticism, that the SPDC chief senior general Than Shwe found the time to visit the destroyed areas,” said in the report.
The then military chief Than Shwe and his company later softened following a personal visit of the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in the middle of May 2008. Slowly communications between the local government and the international agencies began to improve. Visas and travel permits were made a little easier and faster for the foreign aid workers.
The officials of Human Rights Watch however claim that the local aid workers still feel the brunt of continued repression by the military authorities. The report quoted many woman survivors of Cyclone Nargis to narrate the tale of awfulness. One May Khin, a middle aged woman from Laputta township described her pain, “Nargis was the worst experience of my life. The last thing I remember is the lightning coming together with a strong wind and later a giant wave covered my daughter and me while we were running to the monastery. Then we were separated. I was washed away by the wave and became unconscious. When I came around, there were no clothes on my body and I could not walk as I had no strength. Beside me there was a dead body.” The International Organization for Migration claimed that nearly 400,000 people in Burma were still living without a proper home after a devastating cyclone. It also disclosed that the government while failed to provide adequate food, water and shelter to the survivors, shamefully continues violating the rights of the victims as well as the local relief workers.
Quoting the officials and aid workers, The Myanmar Times, a semi-government weekly newspaper published from Rangoon, reported that even after ‘three years after Cyclone Nargis thousands remain in need of shelter assistance’.
“This is an area where there are still huge needs,” said Arne Jan Flolo, first secretary of the Norwegian embassy in Bangkok. Even the UN Human Settlements Program estimated that some 375,000 people still need housing, 36 months after the worst natural disaster that stroke Burma.
If Nargis was of higher intensity, the Cyclone Giri struck the Arakan coast with comparatively lower magnitude. The category 4 cyclone hit the western coast of Burma on October 22, 2011 affecting the whole province. Over 100 people were killed and nearly one million Burmese were affected by the cyclone. According to the UN, over 70,000 people were left homeless by the disaster.
Quoting the Arakan League for Democracy, the Narinjara news, a pro-democracy portal, reported that villages like Kyuntharyar, Pyintharhtwatwa, Taungpaw, Angu, Ywathikay, Taungnyo, Kangyemaw, Dagon, Kanthar were severely affected where the people are still running out of safe drinking water.
“There is a shortage of drinking water. In the contaminated wells and ponds, saltwater sinks and the freshwater stays atop. So people collect and use the water sitting at the top portion of the well. But it is not that safe to drink. Some people still use water contaminated with saltwater. Some use the water from the well that is full with garbage,” the ALD source claimed.
Responding to this writer’s queries, a Rangoon based UN official argues that Nargis was a tragedy that every one has learnt bitter lessons from. So the large scale deaths could have avoided in the time of Giri with more awareness and early warning efforts. Putting his individual view, Aye Win, an official of United Nations Information Centre at Rangoon said, “The earthquake in Tachilek, tragic though it was, brought a greater closeness of cooperation between the humanitarian community and the authorities. The importance of disaster risk reduction was recently underscored by the visit of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on DRR, Margareta Wahlstrom, to Myanmar in early October. There is now greater awareness, and more importantly, greater political willingness to approach DRR holistically because of its long term impact.” Talking to this writer from New Delhi, Thin Thin Win, an exile Burmese lady claimed that the regime had done very little for the rehabilitation for the cyclone victims and they turned out to be inhuman for the women and children. Form the ground reality, it is understood that it would take few more years to completely rehabilitate the affected people in the cyclone affected areas of Burma, she asserted.
The hapless situation has compelled the poor Burmese, mostly young girl and women to fall in trap of traffickers, the fact admitted by the UN official. The US Campaign for Burma stated in a report that the underdeveloped country emerges as a source place for women, and children who subjected to sex trafficking in other countries. Burmese children are forced to labor as hawkers and beggars in Thailand. Many Burmese men, women, and children who migrate for work in Thailand, Malaysia, China, Bangladesh, India, and South Korea are subjected to conditions of forced labor or sex trafficking in these countries. The Rangoon UN official agrees that trafficking in Burma is an important issue to deal with. It will continue to be as long as the grass is continued to be perceived as greener on the other side. The driving force therefore is poverty. The issue of poverty is now publicly and openly acknowledged, a first step on a journey of perhaps a thousand miles, to quote Confucius, Aye Win concluded. The US Campaign for Burma also added in the report, “Military and civilian officials subject men, women, and children to forced labor, and men and boys as young as 11 years old are forcibly recruited to serve in the Burma army as well as the armed wings of ethnic minority groups through intimidation, coercion, threats, and violence. Some observers estimate that thousands of children are forced to serve in Burma’s national army as desertions of men in the army continue.”
Australia is providing emergency assistance to the people of Burma in response to the damage caused by Cyclone Giri, which struck the Rakhine State on 22 October.
The cyclone killed 45 people, with estimates of at least 260,000 Burmese severely affected. There has been widespread damage to houses, crops, schools, roads and bridges.
Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said that Australia will provide $3 million in assistance to help affected communities and families recover from this disaster and provide essential food, shelter, clean water and sanitation.
An immediate $200,000 was provided last month through the Australian Red Cross, and the further $2.8 million announced today will be delivered through the United Nations World Food Programme and Australian non-government organisations, CARE Australia, Save the Children Fund, Oxfam Australia, Burnet Institute and the Australian Red Cross.
"Australia's funding will help those left homeless and in need of food and emergency supplies," said Mr Rudd.
http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/releases/2010/kr_mr_101120.html
The cyclone killed 45 people, with estimates of at least 260,000 Burmese severely affected. There has been widespread damage to houses, crops, schools, roads and bridges.
Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said that Australia will provide $3 million in assistance to help affected communities and families recover from this disaster and provide essential food, shelter, clean water and sanitation.
An immediate $200,000 was provided last month through the Australian Red Cross, and the further $2.8 million announced today will be delivered through the United Nations World Food Programme and Australian non-government organisations, CARE Australia, Save the Children Fund, Oxfam Australia, Burnet Institute and the Australian Red Cross.
"Australia's funding will help those left homeless and in need of food and emergency supplies," said Mr Rudd.
http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/releases/2010/kr_mr_101120.html
Mray Bon: A teacher who was selected to serve as a polling booth officer was dismissed from his job by high authorities after he traveled to his native village to attend his father's funeral during the election period, said close friend of his.
He said, "His father died during Cyclone Giri. He went to his native village to attend his father's funeral without permission from the authorities in the education department. Because of this, the authority fired him from his job."
The teacher who was fired is U Ba Hlaing, who was serving as a teacher at a primary school in Phone Nyo Late Village in Buthidaung Township. His father, U Hla Maung Tha, died tragically in Htoo Chay Village in Mray Bon Township when the cyclone struck the Arakan coast on 22 October.
"He requested permission from the authority in the education department in Buthidaung Township to attend his father's funeral, but the authority refused permission because he was a polling booth officer assigned to supervise the polling booths on election day. He went to his village to attend his father's funeral against the authority's prohibition. Later he was fired from his job by the high authority," he said.
According to the source, the education department of Buthidaung sent a letter to him explaining that he was fired from his job for failing to follow the authority's instructions.
The Burmese military junta will hold the first election in two decades on 7 November, 2010, amid international criticism that the polls will not be fair or free. Many government servicemen have been appointed as polling booth officers.
http://www.narinjara.com/details.asp?id=2792
Relief organizations responding to Cyclone Giri, which pounded western Myanmar on Friday, are finding homes and schools swept away and a need for emergency food and water in the saltwater soaked islands.
"The winds that hit these islands were over 200 km an hour and in many of these places there was a tidal surge of about 10 feet," said Andrew Kirkwood, Save the Children's country director in Myanmar. "Fishing boats have been sunk and paddy fields have been inundated with sea water. Houses have either been blown or washed away. Over 300 schools have been destroyed. It's left a huge wave of destruction behind."
The official death toll in the hardest hit townships of Kyaukpyu, Myebon and Pauktaw was 45, though 200,000 are in need of emergency food supplies, such as rice and beans, and probably will be for the next three to six months, he said.
By comparison, the country's last major cyclone, Nargis, which struck the Irrawaddy Delta in May 2008, killed an estimated 130,000 people.
Children take shelter in a monastery.There were major differences between the two cyclones, including an early-warning system for Giri. Radio and television announcements -- and in some cases people walking around with megaphones -- alerted residents to the approaching storm.
In addition, while the intensity of both storms was similar, the delta where Cyclone Nargis hit is very flat, whereas Giri's path was over hilly terrain, giving people a chance to get to higher ground, Kirkwood said.
Another difference was in the response of Myanmar's government, which was criticized in 2008 for being too slow to let international aid workers into the country.
Kirkwood said the government was much better prepared this time, and his staff received good help from local authorities. They also didn't need to fly in international staff or relief shipments as they after Nargis, because the number of people affected is smaller and they can buy relief supplies locally, he said.
After Nargis, people in Myanmar have a much greater awareness of safer building techniques, Kirkwood continued. "There are very simple things that people can do to strengthen public buildings and homes to make them more cyclone-resistant, including improved bracing and foundations."
However, there's still very little one can do against a Category 4 cyclone and the accompanying tidal surge, he added. People will need to rebuild their livelihoods, including replacing fishing boats and farming tool.
Destroyed cyclone shelter. All photos courtesy of Save the ChildrenIn one community the Save the Children team visited, a cyclone shelter built in 1962 had its roof ripped off by Giri. "We interviewed one man, 84 years old, who said this is the fifth major cyclone that he can remember but this is much stronger than anything that he has seen in his lifetime," Kirkwood said.
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Friday, 5 November 2010
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