Two years on, Burma struggles to recover from Cyclone Nargis

JACK DAVIES, BURMA

August 9, 2010Source: http://www.theage.com.au/world/two-years-on-burma-struggles-to-recover-from-cyclone-nargis-20100808-11qbg.html
STANDING on the man-made wall that runs through sodden fields from his village of Myet Kone to the river, U Aung Htu surveys the darkening skies.

Two years after Cyclone Nargis hit Burma, killing at least 140,000 people and displacing up to 2.4 million, the grey clouds still bring foreboding.

"We had such a bad experience, the people here do not trust the weather, do not know they will be safe,'' he says. ''When the clouds come, they worry about another cyclone."

Myet Kone was nearly wiped from the map by the 2008 storm. Thirty-six people were killed here, and 10 children became orphans. Not one building was left standing.

At the end of last month, the body that has overseen the Irrawaddy Delta's recovery - the Tripartite Core Group, run by the United Nations, Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Burmese government - disbanded, handing over control of the region's recovery to the ruling junta.

"Some things are better now," U Aung Htu says, "some are worse. But we are not yet recovered. We have a long way to go."

The first month after the cyclone was desperate. Burma's military leaders, fearful of external influence, refused to let international aid groups into the country, and the world was outraged by pictures of tonnes of food sitting on the country's borders while people inside the country starved.

Since then, more than $450 million has been committed to the region, but it is less than half of the $1.1 billion called for by the UN.

The Australian government's aid to Burma will jump 67 per cent to nearly $50 million in 2010-11. Australia does not give money to the Burmese government.

Instead, funds are invested through UN agencies or other non-government organisations working in the country.

Progress has also been hard for the international community to monitor. Travel to the area is heavily restricted.

CARE International's country co-ordinator, Brian Agland, expects his organisation to be in the region at least another two years, and says there are still gaps in areas like shelter, and a need to restart the delta's economy.

Even basics, like adequate shelter, remain a problem in villages like Myet Kone. There were 800,000 homes destroyed or damaged by Nargis. Only about 70,000 have been rebuilt.

In Myet Kone, all of the buildings are wooden, single-room homes with thatched walls and roofs.

"If another storm comes, it will take people's lives, because there is still no safe building to go to," U Aung Htu says.

In Taw Khar, half an hour north from Myet Kone by boat, wooden houses, raised on stilts and with tin roofs, have been built by CARE International at a cost of $US300 ($A326) each.

Taw Khar has a cyclone shelter, a new concrete monastery, again funded with international money.

But the concerns here are for about 40 children. The nearest school is more than two kilometres away, across raised, exposed, footpads through rice paddies.

"When the children go to school, the parents have to go with them, to make sure they are safe crossing the water,'' head monk U Mya Oo says.

''And they worry about them if they have to come home suddenly, it is dangerous to get back if the weather turns bad."U Aung Htu watches the dark clouds roll in overhead.

"We worry it will happen again, and we will be left with nothing again,'' he says.

Names of villages and people have been changed.