Natural disaster, earthquakes, tornadoes, wildfires, etc.

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Generals stealin' the aid, re-distributing it in their name...

Myanmar Seizes UN Food for Cyclone Victims and Blocks Foreign Experts
May 10, 2008 — The military leaders of Myanmar seized a shipment of United Nations food aid on Friday intended for victims of a devastating cyclone, declaring that they would accept donations of food and medicine but not the foreign aid workers international groups say are in equally short supply there.

The ruling junta continued to permit a small number of aid deliveries and promised to allow the first air shipment from the Pentagon on Monday, a significant concession because the United States has been Myanmar’s leading critic, imposing sanctions and lobbying for a United Nations resolution condemning the nation’s generals for human rights violations. But the refusal of the country’s iron-fisted rulers to allow doctors and disaster relief experts to enter in large numbers contributed to the growing concern that starvation and epidemic diseases could end up killing people on the same scale as the winds, waves and flooding that destroyed villages across a wide swath of coastal Myanmar nearly a week ago.

The International Red Cross estimated Friday that the combined efforts of relief agencies and the Myanmar government have distributed aid to only 220,000 of up to 1.9 million people left homeless, injured or subject to disease and hunger after the storm. “There are problems to get the aid inside, and there are problems to get the aid out to the delta area,” the Danish Red Cross director, Anders Ladekarl, told Danish broadcaster DR. “We are simply lacking transportation. There are almost no boats and no helicopters. This is really a nightmare to make this operation run.”

As foreign aid groups scurried to deliver relief, the generals who run Myanmar continued to focus on a separate priority: a constitutional referendum scheduled for Saturday. The junta’s plan to go ahead with the vote while restricting aid deliveries drew widespread criticism and concern that soldiers who could be rescuing survivors were likely to be sent to polling places instead. “It is one of the best examples of the disregard for the people by the military,” said Josef Silverstein an expert on Myanmar at Rutgers University.

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Boat carrying Myanmar aid sinks; toll climbs beyond 28,000
Sun May 11, `08 - Myanmar's monumental task of feeding and sheltering 1.5 million cyclone survivors suffered yet another blow Sunday when a boat laden with relief supplies — one of the first international shipments — sank on its way to the disaster zone.

The death toll jumped to more than 28,000 and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband warned that "malign neglect" by the isolated nation's military rulers was creating a "humanitarian catastrophe of genuinely epic proportions." The junta has been sharply criticized for its handling of the May 3 disaster, from failing to provide adequate warnings about the pending storm to responding slowly to offers of help. Though international assistance has started trickling in, the few foreign relief workers who have been allowed entry into Myanmar have been restricted to the largest city of Yangon. Only a handful have succeeded in getting past checkpoints into the worst-affected areas.

But in what was seen as a huge concession by the junta, the United States finally got the go-ahead to send a C-130 cargo plane packed with supplies to Yangon on Monday, with two more air shipments scheduled to land Tuesday. Myanmar's military rulers are deeply suspicious of Washington, which has long been one of the junta's biggest critics, pointing to human rights abuses and its failure to hand over power to a democratically elected government. "We hope that this is the beginning of a long line of assistance from the United States," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters in Crawford, Texas over the weekend. "They're going to need our help for a long time."

Highlighting the many challenges ahead, however, a Red Cross boat carrying rice, drinking water and other goods for more than 1,000 people sank Sunday near hard-hit Bogalay town. All four aid workers on board were safe. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies could not say how much of the cargo has been lost, but it said the food supplies were contaminated by river water. "Apart from the delay in getting aid to people we may now have to re-evaluate how we transport that aid," said Michael Annear, the IFRC's disaster manager in Yangon, who described the sinking as "a big blow."

More Boat carrying Myanmar aid sinks; toll climbs beyond 28,000 - Yahoo! News

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Violent weather in the heartland...

Deadly Twisters Hit Three States
Sunday, May. 11, 2008 — Many have fled this depressed, pollution-scarred mining town. Those who have chosen to stay or have not yet relocated face a new heartache.

A tornado ripped through a 20-block swath of Picher late Saturday afternoon, killing at least seven people. The same storm system then moved into southwest Missouri where tornadoes took the lives of at least 12 others, authorities said. On Sunday, storms rumbled across Georgia, killing at least one person in Dublin, about a 121 miles southeast of Atlanta, authorities said. Weather officials had not yet confirmed whether the storms produced any tornadoes.

Georgia Power officials say at least 80,000 residents are without electricity across the state, mostly concentrated in the metro Atlanta area and the Macon area. In Oklahoma, Highway Patrol Lt. George Brown said Picher's victims included an infant. He said at least three people were confirmed missing. "We've seen homes that were completely leveled to the foundation," Brown said. "In a few of these homes you would have had to be subterranean to survive."

Ottawa County Emergency Manager Frank Geasland said dozens of people were injured, some seriously. "Trees are toppled over, ripped apart," he said. "There are cars thrown everywhere. It looks like a bomb went off, pretty much." Brown said 32 people were transported to Integris Baptist Hospital in the nearby town of Miami. Of those, 26 were treated and released.

Many families have moved away from Picher to escape the lead pollution left by mining operations. The town's population has dwindled from a peak of roughly 20,000 to about 800 people. Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry issued a statement saying a major emergency response was under way. He planned to visit the area Sunday. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Picher and all of the other Oklahoma communities that have been impacted by the latest wave of severe weather," Henry said.

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Wildfires close Florida highways
May 11,`08 -- The Florida Highway Patrol closed 25 miles of Interstate 95 in Brevard County Sunday because of smoke from brush fires.

Northbound and southbound lanes are closed between Malabar Road and State Road 60 in Vero Beach, WOFL-TV in Orlando reported Sunday.

"You can barely see maybe 10 feet in front you. It's very risky to travel through this area at this time," said Highway Patrol Sgt. Charlie Thomas.

Officials said they expected the smoke could linger over the area. "This section could be shut down for most of the night," Thomas said.

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Gettin' out while they can...

Thousands of Burmese Cyclone Refugees Leave Disaster Area
11 May 2008 - At least 10,000 survivors of the May 3 cyclone in Burma have left hard-hit Irawaddy Delta areas, searching for food, clean water, and medicine. The government confirms more than 23,000 dead and at least 37,000 missing. International aid agencies are warning of a health catastrophe if more help does not reach the victims soon.

Reports from the scene Sunday said thousands of people have been pouring into the town of Myaung Mya, where the United Nations and some international aid agencies have set up limited relief operations. The government of Burma, while accepting small amounts of aid from other countries, is still refusing to allow foreign relief workers - including much-needed health teams - into the country. Many are waiting in neighboring Thailand for visas.

Sarah Ireland, the regional director of the British aid agency Oxfam, says 1.5 million people are at risk of dying as a result of a lack of food, water sanitation, and basic life-saving supplies that are not being allowed in. She told reports in Bankok, "We understand that a lot of water sources are already contaminated. The ponds are full of dead bodies. The wells have got saline water in them, and something as basic as a bucket is in scarce supply. So, if people don't have things to put the water in order to make sure it's clean and safe, then that's very difficult. We've got lots of buckets on standby in our warehouse in Dubai. We'd really like access to be able to send them in."

Hospitals, which are already strained under a system where the government spends only four percent of its budget on health care, are overwhelmed. Medical workers are overwhelmed and exhausted. Still, the military leadership is allowing no foreign health teams in.

The group World Vision has relief operations up and running in Myaung Mya, and reports facilities there are unable to provide the needed emergency health care to survivors. World Vision's Samson Jeyakumar Mohan says there are signs of a possible disease outbreak among the survivors. He said, "We already have received information that there is a potential outbreak. We already have information that there are diarrhea cases being reported. Cholera is actually a matter of time and it can happen at any time. In terms of weeks, days, we do not know because it's not a situation we think the world has witnessed before."

More VOA News - Thousands of Burmese Cyclone Refugees Leave Disaster Area

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7.8 quake in China...

Toll from China quake estimated at 3,000 to 5,000
12 May `08 - A massive earthquake struck central China on Monday and state media reported that as many as 5,000 people were killed in a single county while nearly 900 students were trapped under the rubble of their school.

The official Xinhua News Agency said 80 percent of the buildings had collapsed in Beichuan county in Sichuan province after the 7.8-magnitude quake. Xinhua reported that 3,000 to 5,000 people had died in Beichuan, which has a population of 160,000, raising fears the overall death toll could increase sharply. Another 10,000 people were believed to be hurt. The earthquake sent thousands of people rushing out of buildings and into the streets hundreds of miles away in Beijing and Shanghai. The temblor was felt as far away as Pakistan, Vietnam and Thailand.

Four of the dead were ninth-grade students killed when their high school collapsed, Xinhua said. Photos showed heavy cranes trying to remove rubble from the ruined school. Xinhua did not say how many of the students were feared dead. It said its reporters in Juyuan township, about 60 miles from the epicenter, saw buried teenagers struggling to break loose from underneath the rubble of the three-story building "while others were crying out for help." Two girls were quoted by Xinhua as saying they escaped because they had "run faster than others."

The earthquake comes less than three months before the start of the Beijing Summer Olympics, when China hopes to use to showcase its rise in the world. Shanghai's main index inched up Monday, but the advance was capped by worries over inflation and potential damage from the earthquake. Analysts said that shares of companies located in the Sichuan region may fall in coming sessions due to the quake. It struck in the middle of the afternoon when classes and office towers were full, about 60 miles northwest of Chengdu. There were several smaller aftershocks, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site.

More Toll from China quake estimated at 3,000 to 5,000 - Yahoo! News

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China Quake Death Toll Nears 10,000
Monday, May. 12, 2008 — A powerful earthquake toppled buildings, schools and chemical plants Monday in central China, killing nearly 10,000 people and trapping untold numbers in mounds of concrete, steel and earth in the country's worst quake in three decades.

The 7.9-magnitude quake devastated a region of small cities and towns set amid steep hills north of Sichuan's provincial capital of Chengdu. Striking in midafternoon, it emptied office buildings across the country in Beijing and could be felt as far away as Vietnam. Snippets from state media and photos posted on the Internet underscored the immense scale of the devastation. In the town of Juyuan, south of the epicenter, a three-story high school collapsed, burying as many as 900 students and killing at least 50, the official Xinhua news agency said. Photos showed people using cranes, mechanical hoists and their hands to remove slabs of concrete and steel.

Buried teenagers struggled to break free from the rubble, "while others were crying out for help," Xinhua said. Families waited in the rain near the wreckage as rescuers wrote the names of the dead on a blackboard, Xinhua said. Parents of the dead students built makeshift religious altars at the site, resting the corpses on any available piece of plywood or cardboard, and burning paper money and incense in a traditional honor for their child in the afterlife, according to NPR's Melissa Block. The earthquake hit one of the last homes of the giant panda at the Wolong Nature Reserve and panda breeding center, in Wenchuan county, which remained out of contact, Xinhua said.

In Chengdu, it crashed telephone networks and hours later left parts of the city of 10 million in darkness. "We can't get to sleep. We're afraid of the earthquake. We're afraid of all the shaking," said 52-year-old factory worker Huang Ju, who took her ailing, elderly mother out of the Jinjiang District People's Hospital. Outside, Huang sat in a wheelchair wrapped in blankets while her mother, who was ill, slept in a hospital bed next to her. Xinhua reported Tuesday morning that the death toll was approaching 10,000, but did not provide a more precise figure. It said the vast majority of the fatalities occurred in Sichuan with 216 more deaths in three other provinces and the mega-city of Chongqing.

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Persecuted monks help out in Myanmar...

Monks back on front lines to aid cyclone victims
May 12, `08 - The saffron-robed monks who spearheaded a bloody uprising last fall against Myanmar's military rulers are back on the front lines, this time providing food, shelter and spiritual solace to cyclone victims.

The military regime has moved to curb the Buddhist clerics' efforts, even as it fails to deliver adequate aid itself. Authorities have given some monasteries deadlines to clear out refugees, many of whom have no homes to return to, monks and survivors say. "There is no aid. We haven't seen anyone from the government," said U Pinyatale, the 45-year-old abbot of the Kyi Bui Kha monastery sharing almost depleted rice stocks and precious rainwater with some 100 homeless villagers huddled within its battered compound.

Similar scenes are being repeated in other areas of the Irrawaddy delta and Yangon, the country's largest city, where monasteries became safe havens after Cyclone Nargis struck May 3 - and the regime did little. "In the past I used to give donations to the monks. But now it's the other way around. It's the monks helping us," said Aung Khaw, a 38-year-old construction worker who took his wife and young daughter to a monastery in the Yangon suburb of Hlaingtharyar after the roof of his flimsy house was blown away and its bamboo walls collapsed.

One of the monastery's senior monks said he tried to argue with military officials who ordered the more than 100 refugees to leave. "I don't know where they will go. But that was the order," he said, asking for anonymity for fear of reprisals. The government has not announced such an order, which appeared to be applied selectively. Other monasteries in Yangon have been told to clear out cyclone victims in coming days, the monk said, but in the delta, refugees were being allowed to remain or told they could come to monasteries for supplies but not shelter.

More My Way News - Monks back on front lines to aid cyclone victims

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EU to hold Myanmar meeting
12 May 2008, The European Union will hold an emergency meeting on the humanitarian situation in cyclone-hit Myanmar on Tuesday, the EU commissioner for humanitarian aid has said.

"The purpose of the meeting will be to review the situation and to beef up the response of the EU Member States and the European Commission to this emergency situation," said Louis Michel in a statement issued today. "The Commission and the EU ministers will also try to identify and co-ordinate the best means of facilitating the mobilisation and delivery of international humanitarian assistance."

Tuesday's meeting of EU development ministers comes amid a deteriorating situation in the Asian country. "In view of the massive scale of destruction and need caused by the cyclone Nargis, and the acceptance by Burmese authorities to receive international assistance, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel, has called for an urgent meeting of EU ministers in charge of humanitarian aid to be held in Brussels next Tuesday 13th of May," said the statement.

Michel has indicated that he intends to travel to Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, tomorrow, immediately after the meeting, to discuss with the country's authorities the best way to bring international assistance to the affected population. "It is our sincere wish to work in close co-operation with the Burmese authorities to urgently alleviate the sufferings of the Burmese people affected by the cyclone", said Michel. Cyclone Nargis, which smashed into the rice-growing Irrawaddy Delta region in the country's south on May 3, has left nearly 62,000 people dead or missing, according to a government toll.

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Many 'one-child' families without children now...

China races the clock as quake toll nears 12,000
May 13,`08 - Rescuers are racing against time to reach and search for survivors a day after the strongest quake to hit China in more than three decades jolted the south-western province of Sichuan.

As of 2 p.m. Tuesday, the death toll from the 7.8-magnitude earthquake climbed to 11,921, according to the ad hoc headquarters of the disaster relief headed by Premier Wen Jiabao. Of the dead, 11,608 were in Sichuan.
Wenchuan county, the epicentre of the devastating quake, has reported 57 confirmed deaths and about 60,000 residents have yet to be reached. 'I am so worried! So worried!' He Biao, a government official with the Aba Autonomous prefecture of Tibetan and Qiang nationalities, Sichuan province, exclaimed to Xinhua over the phone. Wenchuan forms part of the prefecture.

Wenchuan and neighbouring areas are situated in the steep hills, north of Sichuan's provincial capital Chengdu. Attempts to reach the epicentre 'via land, air and water were all thwarted' by a combination of transport and communications problems and rain, said an official with the Sichuan provincial relief headquarters. Premier Wen Jiabao, who flew to Sichuan Monday evening, urged the public to have 'composure, confidence and courage' in the face of the catastrophe.

He ordered the removal of rocks and mud slides that are blocking roads to the epicentre by midnight Tuesday. 'People are trapped in debris, we must use every second,' he told officials at an emergency meeting at 7 a.m. As of Tuesday morning, 16,760 soldiers joined in the disaster relief efforts. Another 34,000 members of the Jinan and Chengdu military area commands were advancing towards the disaster-stricken regions by plane, train, road and even on foot.

More China races the clock as quake toll nears 12,000

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Fears Burma's junta is diverting aid
May 14, 2008 - THE United Nations is worried that some of the aid intended for victims of the deadly cyclone in Burma might have been diverted but has no hard proof of this, a UN spokeswoman says.

The spokeswoman, Michel Montas, was asked if the UN was concerned that some of the aid sent to Burma, might be going to people who were not victims of Cyclone Nargis. "That concern exists," she said. "We don't have any independent report of a specific portion of the aid going to other sectors besides the victims (but) it is a fact that a very small percentage of victims have so far received the aid."

The Australian reported an Australian aid plane arrived in Rangoon yesterday to offload urgently needed supplies. A senior aid official in Burma said there was little doubt the Australian aid would be rebadged as the property of the Burmese Junta. Credible eyewitness accounts have detailed that UN aid had been similarly repackaged. "The narrative is the military rescuing the nation," the official said. "It's highly probably there will also be leakage of Australian aid."

In Burma, heavy rains on Tuesday pelted homeless cyclone survivors in the country's Irrawaddy delta, complicating the already slow delivery of aid to more than 1.5 million people facing hunger and disease. As more foreign aid trickles in, critics have been ratcheting up the pressure on its military rulers to accelerate a relief effort that is only delivering an estimated one tenth of the supplies needed in the devastated delta.

One Rangoon businessman who returned from a personal aid mission to Bogalay, a delta township where at least 10,000 people were killed, said that soldiers were appropriating aid. "There are still some villages in the worst-hit areas that nobody has got to," the man, in his late 30s, said. "Around Bogalay, private donors are not allowed to distribute their assistance to the victims themselves. We had to hand over what we had."

More Fears Burma's junta is diverting aid | NEWS.com.au

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Override the generals...

Call to force aid on Burma
May 14, 2008 - FRANCE, Britain and Germany have called for the world to deliver aid to cyclone victims in Burma without the military junta's agreement if necessary.

"We have called for the 'responsibility to protect' to be applied in the case of Burma," French junior Human Rights Minister Rama Yade said today as EU development ministers' met to discuss emergency aid to Burma.

The little-used UN principle could allow the delivery of aid without the accord of the government if Burma's military rulers continue to bar foreign aid teams from entering the country.

Mr Yade said the three major EU powers would make the proposal to the United Nations Security Council, but acknowledged that they did not have unanimous support in the 27-nation EU.

Call to force aid on Burma | NEWS.com.au

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Cyclone death toll updated to 34,000
May 14, 2008 - THE official death toll from Burma's devastating Cyclone Nargis has risen to 34,273, with 27,836 people missing, state radio said today.

"According to to the latest information, 34,273 were killed, 1,403 were injured and 27,836 missing,'' it said.

The new official toll raises the number of those killed when the storm hit on May 3 from 31,938 dead and 29,770 missing.

However, the United Nations has warned that the toll probably exceeds 100,000 and that many more may die unless vital aid reaches the 1.5 million survivors.

Cyclone death toll updated to 34,000 | NEWS.com.au

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Cyclone killed mostly children...

Majority Of Dead In Myanmar Cyclone Were Children, Agency Claims
May 13, 2008 - A U.N. agency said on Tuesday that at least 40 percent of the cyclone victims in Myanmar were children, with the toll likely to rise because of the military's continued rejection of international aid.

According to spokesman Dan Collinson, the devastation, which erased whole communities from the landscape, took a high toll on young people because the majority of Myanmar's population is below 18. He told Agence France-Presse, "To be honest it's highly likely to be more than 40 percent, because children are less likely to withstand these kinds of storm surges. Children are that much more vulnerable."

But despite the massive destruction of the cyclone that has killed over 62,000, Myanmar's military rulers continue to refuse to accept international aid and volunteers. Vice-Admiral Soe Thein said his government was grateful for the aid shipment from Washington but insisted the military has sufficient capability to handle the awesome task of search and rescue efforts as well as rebuilding the impoverished country. But aid workers dispute this claim and said the government lacks the equipment and the expertise to distribute aid and even conduct search and rescue efforts because they don't have helicopters to reach inaccessible communities.

In Irrawaddy Delta, one of the heavily-hit communities, the Burmese military transport aid with dugout canoes. As frustration of aid workers and international donors rises and the continued insistence of the Burmese military to control most of the distribution, dead bodies are piling up on the streets across Burma.

Majority Of Dead In Myanmar Cyclone Were Children, Agency Claims | May 14, 2008 | AHN

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China: Quake left 18,000 buried in one city...

Troops hike to quake-buried Chinese villages
Tues., May. 13, 2008 : 18,000 believed under rubble in city near epicenter; death toll tops 12,000

Soldiers hiking over landslide-blocked roads reached the epicenter of China's devastating earthquake Tuesday, pulling bodies and a few survivors from collapsed buildings. The death toll of more than 12,000 is certain to rise as the buried are found.

Crews worked through a steady rain as they searched wrecked towns across hilly stretches of Sichuan province that were stricken by Monday's magnitude-7.9 quake, China's deadliest in three decades. Tens of thousands of homeless spent a second night outdoors, some sleeping under plastic sheeting, others bused to a stadium in the city of Mianyang, on the edge of the disaster area.

Street lamps were switched on in Mianyang on Tuesday night, but all the buildings were dark and deserted after the government ordered people out of them for fear of aftershocks. Security guards were posted at apartment blocks to keep people out. The industrial city of 700,000 people — home to the headquarters of China's nuclear weapons industry — was turned into a thronging refugee camp, with residents sleeping outdoors.

"I'm cold. I don't dare to sleep, and I'm worried a building is going to fall down on me," said Tang Ling, a 20-year-old waitress wrapped in a borrowed pink down jacket and camped outside the Juyuan restaurant with three co-workers. "What's happened is so cruel. In one minute to have so many people die is too tragic."

First wave of troops

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Second catastrophe shaping up in Burma...

UN warns of 'second catastrophe' in Myanmar
14 May 2008, The United Nations has warned that the Myanmar could face a "second catastrophe" unless its military junta allows more access to foreign aid agencies to help the victims of Cyclone Nargis.

"Unless more access to Myanmar is granted to allow aid to flow more quickly, a second catastrophe could result," Elizabeth Byrs, Spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned. The hardest-hit areas of Yangon and Irrawaddy delta are experiencing heavy rains, further impeding aid efforts. The junta must open at least an air or sea corridor to channel aid in large quantities as quickly as possible, he said.

The Myanmar government has granted only 34 new visas to UN personnel, Byrs said, adding "this is not enough to respond to a disaster of this magnitude". Meanwhile, the UN refugee agency announced that more than 40 tons of its shelter supplies including plastic sheets, blankets, kitchen sets and tents have reached Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, in the past 24 hours.

Half of these items were airlifted in from Dubai. "Our staff are at the Yangon airport to claim the items for immediate dispatch to areas affected by the cyclone," said Jennifer Pagonis, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The other half of the supplies were driven overland from the Thai-Myanmar border in two trucks, carrying items from UNHCR's stockpiles for refugee camps along the Thai border, in a two-day journey through heavy rains.

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Due to one-child policy, whole families gone...

Entire generations wiped out in China quake
15 May 2008, Hopes of survival of the 40,000-odd people missing or trapped in debris seemed to recede some 56 hours after the earthquake struck China's southwest province of Sichuan.

Only a few people have so far been pulled out of fallen buildings and other debris, suggesting that rescue mission in this mountainous region is extremely daunting. With China practising one-child family norm over the past two decades, many of the parents that have lost children were suddenly faced the possibility of an entire generation or family tree being wiped out. Several heart rending scenes emerged out of the havoc. Liu Ning, a school teacher, saved the lives of 59 children trapped under the debris of the Beichuan Middle School. He later found that his own daughter, a student in class ninth, had died in the quake.

Though military troops have managed to supply food and medicines to many inaccessible areas using helicopters, there were still 11 villages near the epicentre of the earth quake that had not been reached by rescue workers. Official figures of the total death climbed gradually to 15,000 till Wednesday evening as the government machinery was set on implementing premier Wen Jiabao's orders to never give up hope of saving people trapped under debris. One reason for the slow rise of the death toll was the focus by the machinery on saving lives instead of recovering bodies.

Wen, in an unprecedented move, personally directed rescue operations for over 50 hours in the midst of the disaster zone. His presence made a huge difference when it came to mobilizing forces and keeping up the tempo of rescue operations. The biggest challenge in moving troops and material continues to be the blockades on the roads caused by fallen rocks and massive cracks on the asphalt surface.

Meanwhile, thousands of Chinese soldiers rushed to repair a dam badly cracked by the earthquake. The Chinese government said that nearly 400 dams suffered damage in the earthquake. In Yingxiu town, soldiers found that only 2,300 out of its 10,000 residents have survived. In Dujiangyan, rescue workers could pull out just four persons after several hours of effort. Over 50,000 troops have been put into operation and many more are on the way to the affected places. They have been spread out to some of the most difficult to reach places.

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Ban givin' generals hell...

Ban Ki-moon slams Myanmar junta
May 14,`08 -- U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday the Myanmar government's efforts to aid victims of Cyclone Nargis have fallen "far, far too short."

Ban called for a greater effort to line up resources and aid workers to help storm victims, which the U.N. says includes at least 38,000 dead, more than 27,000 others missing and 2.5 million "severely affected" by the May 2 storm that devastated the country.

"Even though the Myanmar government has shown some sense of flexibility, at this time, it's far, far too short," Ban said. "The magnitude of this situation requires much more mobilization of resources and aid workers."

Ban made the comments as he was about to meet Wednesday with leaders of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to hold discussions to determine what "concrete measures" could be taken to persuade Mynamar's military junta to allow foreign aid workers into the country. "Until now, regrettably, I think we have spent much of our time and energy in facilitating aid, getting food in, and visas being issued," he said.

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Report: Myanmar junta diverting aid
May 14 (UPI) -- The Myanmar government is diverting aid for Cyclone Nargis victims to the army while some supplies are being stolen, relief organization officials say.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that "several" foreign relief organizations in Myanmar said the country's military is stealing or warehousing aid. The aid groups also said it is impossible to track the shipments because the country's rulers won't allow foreign aid workers to enter the devastated areas.

The newspaper said the foreign aid officials refused to be quoted directly on their concerns because they didn't want to anger the government and put their operations at risk. However, Marcel Wagner of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency confirmed that aid was being diverted by the army, adding that Wagner predicted theft would "become an increasing problem."

International poured into Yangon Wednesday, where it was left at staging areas. But because the government has barred all foreigners from entering the country, the supplies' fate from there is largely unknown.

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