Natural disaster, earthquakes, tornadoes, wildfires, etc.

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The second wave, the disease stage of disaster, is next...

Conditions ripe for disease in Myanmar
May 26, 2008: Myint Hlaing's family bathes and cooks with water from an irrigation ditch fouled by human waste and a rotting cow carcass.

His 10-year-old daughter drinks bottled water donated by aid groups, but she still suffers from diarrhea. Meanwhile, his family and other cyclone survivors endure daily rains in tattered thatch huts as the monsoon season nears. Myanmar's junta insists health conditions are normal in Myanmar's devastated Irawaddy delta. But in many areas of the delta, they are a recipe for disease. "Shelter is the most important thing we need," Myint Hlaing said Monday. "There are more and more mosquitoes here. We are afraid of getting dengue fever."

Relief group Church World Service has reported finding elderly and child survivors of the cyclone dying from dysentery in some areas because many have no choice but to drink dirty water. Other groups have detected a number of ailments including pneumonia, malaria, cholera and diarrhea. Save the Children UK has warned that some 30,000 children in the delta were severely malnourished before Cyclone Nargis struck, with thousands facing starvation in the next two or three weeks. The monsoon season, which begins next month, adds yet another challenge.

"The rain is a real problem," Eric Stover, lead author of a critical report published last year about Myanmar's broken health system, told The Associated Press after visiting the delta. "The water is rising up, and the latrines are just outside (flowing) into the water, and there's livestock around. That's the perfect breeding ground for diarrhea and cholera." Stover, a professor of law and public health at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, managed to slip past military checkpoints twice to get a glimpse of the devastation. He was unable to assess the health situation in villages, but said conditions are ripe for outbreaks. "It's as bad as we all think it is, there's no question about that," he said. "I think for public health people and for U.N. personnel the frustrating thing is that they can't see it."

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1-Child Policy Has Exceptions After China Quake...

China Drops 1-Child Rule for Quake Victims
May 26, 2008 : China's 1-child policy makes exceptions for families affected by deadly earthquake

Chinese officials said Monday that the country's one-child policy exempts families with a child killed, severely injured or disabled in the country's devastating earthquake. Those families can obtain a certificate to have another child, the Chengdu Population and Family Planning Committee in the capital of hard-hit Sichuan province said. With so many shattered families asking questions, the Chengdu committee is clarifying existing one-child policy guidelines, said a committee official surnamed Wang.

"There are just a lot of cases now, so we need to clarify our policies," said Wang, who declined to elaborate. The May 12 quake was particularly painful to many Chinese because it killed so many only children. The earthquake has left more than 65,000 people dead so far, with more than 23,000 missing. Officials have not been able to estimate the number of children killed.

Chinese couples who have more than one child are commonly punished by fines. The announcement says that if a child born illegally was killed in the quake, the parents will no longer have to pay fines for that child — but the previously paid fines won't be refunded. If the couple's legally born child is killed and the couple is left with an illegally born child under the age of 18, that child can be registered as the legal child — an important move that gives the child previously denied rights including free nine years of compulsory education.

More ABC News: China Drops 1-Child Rule for Quake Victims

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Storms in Iowa, Minn. bring heartbreak, grief...

Grief follows Midwest storms
Mon., May. 26, 2008 - Eight killed and dozens injured after severe weather rips through Midwest

The house was gone, much of it blown into a swamp. A couple was trapped in the debris — the husband with broken bones and the wife with cuts to her face — but it wasn't their own safety they were worried about. "They just kept screaming, 'My children, my children!' neighbor Marvin Miller said Monday, a day after violent storms killed six people in Iowa and one in this St. Paul suburb. The couple's 4-year-old daughter was found under parts of a shattered wall. She wasn't breathing.

Neighbor Troy Ashton performed CPR on her until a police officer took over. Speaking quietly in an elementary school cafeteria Monday, he said he hadn't thought the little girl would make it. The girl's little brother, 2-year-old Nathaniel Prindle, was still missing. Someone stood in the home's wreckage and looked at the direction the debris was blown out into the swamp, and used that to guess which way to go. "It was a big swamp and there was debris everywhere," said Ashton, 38.

He waded in and found the boy in chest-deep water. He handed him over to Miller, who performed CPR on a broken piece of wall to keep the child above the water. Miller, a 42-year-old father of four, knew while he breathed into Nathaniel that there wasn't much hope. "But I didn't want to give up." Nathaniel died. His sister, revived twice by emergency workers on the way to a Minneapolis hospital, was in stable condition Monday. Their father, Gerard Prindle, was in stable condition at a St. Paul hospital where his wife, Christy, was treated and released.

More Grief follows storms in Iowa, Minn. - Weather - MSNBC.com

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Would imagine the aftermath of a quake like that would unnerve anyone...

Mental Trauma Rampant After China Earthquake
May. 27, 2008 - Treating Mental Trauma A Daunting Task In Wake Of China's May 12 Earthquake

Liu Yisi sits on a hospital bed, reading a comic book. His nose is bruised, swollen and cut, and his left arm is heavily bandaged. While his physical injuries from China's May 12 earthquake are healing, mental trauma has made the 13-year-old withdraw into mostly silence. Li Fuhong, a psychology professor who voluntarily drove nearly 200 miles to the disaster zone, speaks softly to Liu. He coaxes the boy to tell him what happened when he escaped the ruins of his school in the city of Mianzhu and makes him repeat these words: "The bad events are over. The future will be better. I need to be strong."

The teenager is lucky to be getting help. Across central China's disaster zone, many other such victims with mental trauma are going untreated because health services are already strained. Hospitals and clinics were destroyed along with so much else across Sichuan province in the quake, leaving acute shortages of staff and facilities. In the immediate aftermath, medical services have focused on treating crushed and broken bones, amputated limbs and on preventing disease outbreaks. Experts warn that mental trauma could be a hidden toll for many survivors.

The government says the quake may have killed more than 80,000 people, leaving many more to deal with the deaths of loved ones. Millions have had their homes shattered and their lives thrown into turmoil. No government estimate of people needing psychological help has been released, although the state-run Legal Daily newspaper quoted an expert as saying they could number as high as 600,000.

Teams of psychologists, psychiatrists and volunteer counselors like Li Fuhong have gone to the hardest-hit areas, where mental health professionals have been swamped. "China has been struggling to help thousands of people distressed and traumatized in the unprecedented earthquake that ravaged many parts of Sichuan," the official Xinhua News Agency said last week. "Many volunteers and experts have rushed to quake zones but psychologists are still in great demand."

More Mental Trauma Rampant After China Earthquake, Treating Mental Trauma A Daunting Task In Wake Of China's May 12 Earthquake - CBS News

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Aftershocks in China raze 420,000 more homes
27 May,`08 - Xinhua reports 63 injured as four aftershocks hit southwest China Tuesday; Aftershocks hit amid evacuations over fears that newly-formed lake will burst; This month's 7.9-magnitude earthquake created 35 so-called quake lakes; Official death toll from the original quake has risen to 67,183

Two additional aftershocks struck quake-ravaged China on Tuesday, injuring at least 63 people and causing the collapse of more than 420,000 homes, according to the state-run news agency Xinhua. The agency said the aftershocks struck the southwest town of Qingchuan in Sichuan Province, and neighboring Ningqiang in Shaanxi Province. A total of 63 people were injured in Qingchuan alone by the new aftershocks, with six in critical condition, Xinhua said. In total, authorities reported four aftershocks in the area Tuesday, all of them above magnitude 4.5, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Xinhua reported the two recent aftershocks at 5.4 and 5.7 magnitudes, citing the China National Seismological Network. The USGS said they measured 4.5 and 5.0 magnitude. The earlier aftershocks registered at magnitude 5.2 and 5.5, the USGS said. The aftershocks rattled the area as authorities were evacuating thousands of people in Sichuan province Tuesday so they could blast a potentially dangerous lake created by landslides from this month's earthquake.

About 158,000 people were expected to flee their homes downstream by midnight, China's Xinhua news agency reported. The evacuations took place in nearly 170 communities. The number of evacuees could increase to more than a million if authorities fear the entire dam at Tangjiashan -- caused by the debris -- is about to give way. "It's better for them to complain about the trouble that the evacuation would bring than to shed tears after the possible danger," said Liu Ning of the Ministry of Water Resources.

Tangjiashan lake was formed when landslides from the May 12 earthquake blocked a section of the Jianhe River. It is holding back 130 million cubic meters (170 million cubic yards) of water, according to Liu. Engineers are working to create a spillway to relieve pressure, but they do not have a lot of time to work with, Xinhua reported.

More Aftershocks destroy 420,000 more homes - CNN.com

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U.S. could see record twisters this season...

Why U.S. could see record twister season
Tues., May. 27, 2008 WASHINGTON - La Nina was factor earlier, now it's a stuck weather pattern

Another week, another rumbling train of tornadoes that obliterates entire city blocks, smashing homes to their foundations and killing people even as they cower in their basements. With the year not even half done, 2008 is already the deadliest tornado year in the United States since 1998 and seems on track to break the U.S. record for the number of twisters in a year, according to the National Weather Service. Also, this year's storms seem to be unusually powerful.

But like someone who has lost all his worldly possessions to a whirlwind, meteorologists cannot explain exactly why this is happening. "There are active years and we don't particularly understand why," said research meteorologist Harold Brooks at the National Severe Storms Lab in Norman, Okla. Over the weekend, an extraordinarily powerful twister ripped apart Parkersburg, Iowa, destroying 288 homes in the town of about 1,000 residents. At least four people were killed there. Among the buildings destroyed were City Hall, the high school, and the lone grocery store and gas station. Some of those killed were in basements.

The brutal numbers for the U.S. so far this year: at least 110 dead, 30 killer tornadoes and a preliminary count of 1,191 twisters, which, after duplicate sightings are removed, is likely to go down to around 800. The record for the most tornadoes in a year is 1,817 in 2004. In the past 10 years, the average number of tornadoes has been 1,254. "Right now we're on track to break all previous counts through the end of the year," said warning meteorologist Greg Carbin at the Storm Prediction Center, also in Norman.

Stronger storms as well

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Navy tired of gettin' jacked around...

U.S. Ships May Abandon Myanmar Aid Efforts
WASHINGTON, May 28, 2008 - Still Denied Permission, Navy Vessels Will Likely Give Up Trying To Provide Relief Within Days

The United States probably will withdraw a group of naval vessels from waters off the coast of Myanmar within days unless the government allows the ships to offload their relief supplies for cyclone victims, the senior commander of U.S. forces in the region said Wednesday. Navy Adm. Timothy Keating, chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, said he would discuss the matter this week with Defense Secretary Robert Gates in Singapore, where they will attend an international security conference.

Keating said the group of ships, led by the amphibious assault ship USS Essex, has other scheduled commitments in the area, including a planned port visit to Hong Kong. They were in the Gulf of Thailand participating in a naval exercise when the cyclone struck Myanmar, also known as Burma, on May 2-3. "Absent a green light from Burmese officials, I don't think she will be there for weeks," Keating told a Pentagon news conference, referring to the Essex. "Days, and then we'll see."

The admiral said the Myanmar junta's refusal to allow the Navy to provide relief is frustrating. He described the sailors and Marines aboard the Essex as "desperate" to provide help. "If they can't help, they know they have other things that they joined the Navy and the Marine Corps to do, so they want to get on with that sort of thing," Keating said. "It is certainly frustrating to us at Pacific Command. Imagine how much more frustrating it is to the men and women on the ship."

More U.S. Ships May Abandon Myanmar Aid Efforts, Still Denied Permission, Navy Vessels Will Likely Give Up Trying To Provide Relief Within Days - CBS News

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Cyclone Survivors Victimized By Myanmar Soldiers
May. 28, 2008 - Victimized Again: Cyclone Survivors Forced By Military To Work, Return To Destroyed Homes

It's not much, but the flimsy bamboo lean-to on the side of the road is all Aye Shwe has to keep his family dry. They lost their home to the cyclone and may soon be uprooted again _ this time by soldiers ordering them to leave. Three weeks after the storm, survivors say they are being victimized again, by a military regime that has forced some to return to flooded, collapsed homes and others to labor on reconstruction projects. Even Myanmar volunteers making the difficult trip into the Irrawaddy delta to deliver food and supplies to survivors are being stopped and detained for hours, and the government has started impounding cars.

"Where my house used to be is still filled with water up to my waist," said Aye Shwe, pointing to fields of rice paddies in the distance, under water as far as the eye could see. "How can I build a new house there?" The 52-year-old rice farmer's mother was killed in the cyclone that left more than 134,000 people dead or missing, and the water buffaloes that were a mainstay of his livelihood drowned in the fierce storm surges.

Still, until this week he had more than many: He managed to fashion a shelter from bamboo poles lashed together with palm fronds laid over one side as a crude roof. His wife and six children huddled together Monday on its raised bamboo floor, sheltering from the searing heat and the downpours that now come daily as monsoon season gets under way. It's location on the roadside outside the hard-hit delta town of Pyapon, a four-hour drive from Yangon, had given his family access to the Myanmar volunteers ferrying donated food, water and other aid from the country's biggest city. Then the soldiers came and ordered the family and the hundreds of others camped out on the roadside to leave.

More Cyclone Survivors Victimized By Myanmar Soldiers, Victimized Again: Cyclone Survivors Forced By Military To Work, Return To Destroyed Homes - CBS News

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Granny says, "Dat's gratitude fer ya"...

Myanmar generals insult world donors
Thursday 29th May, 2008 - Myanmar has described world aid offers for victims of Cyclone Nargis as 'chocolate bar' donations.

The Myanmar junta has lashed out at offers of foreign aid, criticising demands for access to the Irrawaddy delta and saying the victims of Cyclone Nargis could stand up for themselves.

The Kyemon newspaper has said in a Myanmar language article that the people from Irrawaddy can survive on self-reliance 'without chocolate bars donated by foreign countries.' As with all media in Myanmar, the Kyemon newspaper is tightly controlled by the army and is believed to go along with the opinions of the top generals.

The editorial also accused the international community of being stingy, noting that the United Nations was still a long way short of its US$201 million target, nearly four weeks after the disaster. It said the level of aid stands in stark contrast to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, when governments around the world promised US$2.08 billion within the first week.

Myanmar generals insult world donors

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Myanmar evicts cyclone victims from temporary housing
Friday 30th May, 2008 - Destitute families are being pushed out of government-run cyclone relief centres, due to government concerns the tent cities might become more permanent.

Officials of the junta have been quoted as saying the people will be better off back in their homes 'where they are more stable.' The New Light of Myanmar, a government newspaper, also warned that foreign relief workers could snoop around while pretending to give help.

The newspaper has condemned world donors for linking aid money to full access to the hardest-hit regions in the Irrawaddy Delta. Locals and aid workers said there were 39 camps in the immediate vicinity of Kyauktan, 30 kilometres south of Rangoon, being cleared out as part of the wave of evictions.

The victims had only been given bamboo poles and some tarpaulins to the camps the Irrawaddy Delta, where 134,000 people were left dead or missing by Cyclone Nargis on May 2nd. Four weeks after the disaster, the United Nations says fewer than one in two of the 2.4 million people affected by the cyclone have received any form of help from either the government, or international or local aid groups.

Myanmar evicts cyclone victims from temporary housing

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Corruption rears its ugly head again in China...

Cries Of Corruption Follow China Quake
May 29, 2008 - Tragic Disaster Opens Door For Citizens To Air Long-Held Complaints

A Chinese police car had been tipped onto its side by an angry crowd. TV footage showed its lights still blinking. It was the most striking example of anger directed at allegedly corrupt officials after this month's earthquake in China, where the authoritarian government usually keeps tight control of society and quickly suppresses dissent. The scale of the disaster, which officials say could have a death toll of more than 80,000 with 5 million homeless, has given people more room than normal to express their frustrations.

Parents have gathered bags of concrete dust from collapsed schools, calling it evidence of shoddy construction, and protested in the rubble. Citizens question the transparency of relief donations, such as why some tents marked "disaster only" have appeared in upscale neighborhoods barely touched by the quake. Chinese people have built up years of deep distrust of officials seen as corrupt and indifferent in a society where everyone scrambles for a piece of the blazing economy. Even as China's top leaders have won praise for their response to the country's worst disaster in a generation, the skepticism remains, especially about local officials.

In a rare public outburst captured last week in footage obtained by AP Television News, hundreds of residents of Deyang city gathered outside a children's clothing store where they suspected an official had stashed 10 boxes of earthquake relief goods. The footage shows the crowd cheering as two young men climb on a police car and stomp around. One raises his fist. The footage does not show what happens next, but cuts to a shot of the car upturned, the street around it empty. The state-run Xinhua News Agency, normally quiet on any sign of Chinese unrest, didn't mention the scenes. But it did report that a Deyang official had been detained on suspicions of misusing earthquake aid.

In a further sign of the government's sensitivity on the issue, the ruling Communist Party's top anti-graft body, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, issued guidelines last week promising "quick, strict and harsh penalties" for any officials caught embezzling quake relief, Xinhua reported. In another case, police had to break up a crowd of about 500 that had gathered around a relief tent in an upscale neighborhood in Chengdu, the capital of hardest-hit Sichuan province. Several people were playing mahjong inside, and a man said he "took the tent through connections," the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper reported.

More Cries Of Corruption Follow China Quake, Tragic Disaster Opens Door For Citizens To Air Long-Held Complaints - CBS News

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As Myanmar Reels, Junta Leader Lives Large
May 29, 2008 - Rare Glimpse Of Gen. Than Shwe's Capital Compound Reveals Opulent Accommodations

Getting to see one of the world's most reclusive military strongmen requires a VIP flight, armed escorts and soldiers pointing the way - not to mention a disaster of epic proportions. Even a calamity the size of Cyclone Nargis hasn't stopped construction in the newly built capital of Naypyitaw, Senior Gen. Than Shwe's extravagant vanity project. The junta leader and his team of generals have overseen its making since 2005. Than Shwe's rising Shangri-La of officialdom contrasts starkly with the misery in the rest of the country, one of the poorest and most repressed in the world.

A sign outside one government office read, "Can I Help You?" But a few hundred miles south, that was an offer in short supply where thousands of homeless survivors begged for food on the roadsides. The cyclone's floodwaters have left more than 2 million people hungry, homeless and at risk of disease. The xenophobic government has admitted it needs foreign expertise and $11 billion to rebuild. But it waited nearly a month to allow some foreign aid workers access to the disaster zone.

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Soldiers greeted the VIP motorcade with salutes as it moved along the main road, passing sprawling new golf courses and resorts with signs like "The Thingaha - Juber cool." Few people were spotted anywhere. Inside one resort, well-groomed waiters served cool green melon drinks. At another stop, the group was offered a buffet of seafood, noodles and other local fare on elegant wooden tables. The five-star luxury hotels featured circular driveways, gleaming fountains, shady foyers and sunny pools.

FULL As Myanmar Reels, Junta Leader Lives Large, Rare Glimpse Of Gen. Than Shwe's Capital Compound Reveals Opulent Accommodations - CBS News

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Mass evacuation in face of dam break fears...

China Evacuates 200,000
Saturday, May. 31, 2008 — Chinese authorities had evacuated nearly 200,000 people by early Saturday and warned more than 1 million others to be ready to leave quickly as a lake formed by a devastating earthquake threatened to breach its dam.

The confirmed death toll from China's worst quake in three decades was raised Saturday to 68,977, an increase of about 120 people from a day earlier. Another 17,974 people were still missing, the State Council said. The increase was the smallest since the government started issuing a daily death toll shortly after the quake hit. Hundreds of Chinese troops have been working around the clock to drain Tangjiashan lake in Sichuan province. The lake formed above Beichuan town in the Mianyang region when a hillside plunged into a river valley during the May 12 quake that killed more than 68,000 people.

The official Xinhua News Agency said work on a runoff channel had been completed. It quoted Yue Xi, deputy chief of the water and electricity section of the People's Armed Police, as saying water was expected to be discharged between Sunday and Tuesday. Xinhua said 197,477 people were evacuated to safe ground by Saturday morning. It did not say how the exact number was arrived at, and many of the people may have moved just short distances to higher areas.

The news agency said Tan Li, the Communist Party chief of Mianyang, had issued another order that calling for all 1.3 million people in the area to be evacuated if "the barrier of the quake lake fully opens" and floods the area. An official with the press office of Mianyang City Quake Control and Relief Headquarters, who would give only her surname of Chen, said Saturday's drill would involve testing the command system of various levels of government officials to ensure that any order to evacuate � if it comes � would be passed on quickly to everyone in the valley.

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Buncha despots...

Gates Says Burma Guilty of Criminal Neglect After Cyclone
01 June 2008 - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says more people will die if Burma's military government does not lift restrictions on relief aid soon. Mr. Gates spoke at an Asian security forum in Singapore, part of his tour of Asia.

High on the agenda at the Asia security forum was Burma, where the United Nations says millions are suffering from the after-effects of Cyclone Nargis, which swept through the country nearly a month ago, leaving 134,000 people dead or missing. Despite letting in some aid, and some foreign relief workers, Burma's government continues to restrict the amount of help that is reaching the victims. In remarks at the forum in Singapore, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said unless the Burmese government changes its approach, more people will die. Gates said he would describe the Burmese generals' current policy as one of - in his words - criminal neglect.

The United States has been among those pressing Burma to let in more assistance, especially to those in the hard-hit and remote areas of the Irawaddy Delta. Four U.S. Navy ships have been standing by in the Andaman Sea off the Burmese coast for weeks, loaded with fresh water, medicine, landing craft, and helicopters that could get the aid to victims in a matter of minutes - if they had the Burmese government's permission to do so. The U.S. Defense Secretary said no decision has been made to call off the operation, dubbed Caring Response, but he said it may be matter of days before the ships are called back.

He said it is becoming clear that the Burmese authorities will not accept the assistance. Analysts say Burma's military - in power since 1962 - views the presence of foreign soldiers as a threat. Despite reports that aid has yet to reach hundreds of thousands of cyclone victims, Burma's deputy defense minister Aye Myint told delegates at the security forum on Sunday that relief operations in the country are over and the generals are now focusing on reconstruction. Burma says it needs $11 billion to rebuild. The government has not issued any reports on how it reached that figure and foreign relief experts say it is impossible to verify since no international teams have been allowed to do a thorough assessment.

Aside from Burma, Secretary Gates said the forum in Singapore covered a wide range of issues, including securing some of the world's busiest shipping lanes. "We talked about security issues, where our cooperation is good and where Malaysia has played an important role, not only in terms of protecting its own security, but in helping to protect the straits of Malacca, and against piracy and against terrorism," Gates said. After the forum, the U.S. Defense Secretary flew to Bangkok for meetings with Thai officials. His visit followed street clashes among political opponents that have raised fears of another military coup. Thailand returned to democratic rule in January after a 2006 coup ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

VOA News - Gates Says Burma Guilty of Criminal Neglect After Cyclone

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Guess ol' Brownie is still doin' a heck of a job...

Draft plan: FEMA may use trailers in new disaster
2 Jun. `08 WASHINGTON - The government may house disaster victims in trailers this hurricane season as a last resort, despite promises never to use them again because of high levels of formaldehyde found in trailers used after the Katrina catastrophe.

Only the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency could approve the use of such trailers, and they would have to meet the agency's standard for low formaldehyde levels, according to a draft of the agency's five-page 2008 hurricane-season plan, obtained by The Associated Press. Also, disaster victims could stay in the trailers for only six months. Hurricane season started June 1 and will last through November. Forecasters predict the 2008 Atlantic season will be busier than average, with a good chance of six to nine hurricanes forming, including two to five major ones.

The Bush administration and FEMA came under heavy criticism for the response to Katrina in 2005. About 1 million people were displaced because of the hurricane, and thousands were sent to emergency travel trailers. It was later discovered that the trailers had high levels of formaldehyde — a preservative commonly used in building materials. Prolonged exposure can lead to breathing problems and is also believed to cause cancer. Complaints began popping up shortly after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, with residents of FEMA-issued trailers reporting frequent headaches, nosebleeds and other ailments.

Currently some 500 families remain in trailers, according to FEMA. FEMA Director R. David Paulison has said there will be no more trailers while he is in office. But his deputy says that's not a sure thing should there be another catastrophic disaster. "We're putting our head in the sand," deputy administrator Harvey Johnson said in an interview Monday. "If we had a Katrina again, there's probably no way we could respond to a Katrina without having to deploy all available options, which will include travel trailers."

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