Myanmar deaths could pass 10,000

YANGON, MYANMAR. The death toll from a devastating cyclone in Myanmar could reach more than 10,000 in the low-lying area where the storm wreaked the most havoc, the country’s foreign minister warned yesterday.

Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit the Southeast Asian country, also known as Burma, early Saturday with winds of up to 120 mph. It knocked out electricity to the country’s largest city, Yangon, and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless.

Myanmar is not known to have an adequate disaster warning system, and many rural buildings are constructed of thatch, bamboo and other materials easily destroyed by fierce storms.

“The government misled people. They could have warned us about the severity of the coming cyclone so we could be better prepared,” said Thin Thin, a grocery store owner.

The radio station broadcasting from the country’s capital, Naypyitaw, said 3,939 people had been killed. Another 2,879 people were unaccounted for in a single town, Bogalay, in the country’s low-lying Irrawaddy River delta area.

But Foreign Minister Nyan Win told Yangon-based diplomats that the death toll could rise to more than 10,000 in the Irrawaddy delta, according to Asian diplomats at the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity because it was held behind closed doors.