Myanmar Gets Leveled By Cyclone
Mon, May 5, 2008
Environmental Graffiti Will be Changing Dramatically Soon. Get a Sneak Preview By Signing Up Here.
Images of Myanmar before (above) and after (below) (modified from Wikimedia Commons and AFP)
Environmental Graffiti is, of course, the site for environmentalists who don’t take themselves too seriously. Aside from going on at PETA every once in a while, we’re happy to spread urban legends and make jokes about pot. Unfortunately, something happened over the weekend that was so cataclysmic that we simply couldn’t ignore it. A huge cyclone struck Myanmar, a small country in Southeast Asia, and killed nearly 4,000 people.
The death toll was originally announced to be just over 350 on Saturday; a number that was mercifully low in retrospect, as deaths from more more remote areaswere reported. While details are still sketchy, it’s clear that the death and destruction is the greatest inflicted on the continent since the 2004 tsunami struck Indonesia. The government has been criticized for having a slow response to the tragedy, especially the military. Our more politically oriented readers may remember last year when the military in Myanmar was brutally effective in cracking down on monks who dared to protest in favor of democracy. It leaves one bewildered to imagine how an organization that can mobilize so rapidly in the face of unarmed old men in robes can be left gasping when there are lives in the balance.
After all, it does make a lot of sense: after you’ve been through a cyclone you should have to scavenge your own supplies and attempt to rebuild your life on your own. Why should the foreigners help you? They are only going to spark a revolt, or so the government claims.
The UN, meanwhile, is doing what it can to negotiate relaxing the regulations, and the Red Cross is keeping their local volunteers in supplies, but the bulk of international aid continues to be undermined, adding insult to injury.
Environmental Graffiti is up for four bloggers’ choice awards. You can vote for us for best entertainment blog, best blog of all time, best geek blog and best animal blogger.
If you want to find out all the latest news on the environment, why not subcribe to our RSS feed? We’ll even throw in a free album.
You Might Also Like Our Friends' Posts From the Intertubes
“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else.”
1 Trackbacks For This Post
-
» The Anticipation Is Killing Me What’s Required: Progress in the Commonwealth Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 8:43 pm[...] with the biggest baddest horserace in the land but waiting for the polls to open tomorrow, and the “news of the weird” for today is all bad (Note: CNN anchor just screwed up and pronounced “Eight Belles” as “Eight [...]
May 11th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
You would think that this might in the end spell the end of the junta – even Thailand must get tired of supporting such a geocidal regime The Mynamar cyclone may have not just devastated the Irrawaddy Delta but also the Myanmar regime