Myanmar News

Myanmar’s cyclone has suddenly put Myanmar on the map. Deadly Cyclone Nargris has hit the Irrawaddy delta with the death toll rising by the hour but with reports of over 20,000 dead and maybe twice that number missing. Reuters is reporting that almost all of the dead and missing are from the Irrawaddy Delta which appears to be the hardest hit.The former capital of Yangoon (formerly known as Rangoon) is further inland and appears to have come of relatively unscathed compared to the Myanmar delta. It appears that the tidal wave was more deadly than Cyclone Nargris itself.

Myanmar Cyclone Nagris

Burma has been closed to the outside world for decades. Yet now one of the most closed countries in the world has called for outside assistanace. Has Cyclone Nargris that hit the Irawaddy Delta Saturday been a blessing in disguise? Sure over 20,000 are being reported dead - but finally will the world be allowed into Burma? For decades Mynamar, as the ruling military junta renamed Burma, has suffered under one of the most repressive regimes in the world. Really in terms of freedom of movement and access only North Korea is more difficult for Westerners to get to. For many years tourist visas were restricted to 7 days and tourists rarely made it to the Irrawaddy Delta where Cyclone Nargris struck Saturday, 4 May. More recently a standard visa has been extended to 30 days but still tourists are restricted to where in Myanmar they travel. No overland crossings are allowed. In fact there are few roads. It is likely that there are roads in the north to one of Burma’s few friends - China.

Mynamar was due to vote on a so-called “roadmap to democracy” but the scale of this disaster has resulted in talk of postponing this, at least in the worst affected regions. But, callous as it may sound, maybe this natural disaster is a sign of the beginning of the end for the 46 year old junta which has tried to keep Myanmar secluded from the rest of the world.

The junta actually appears to care what the world thinks: or at least its powerful South East Asian neighbors in APEC. Is Cyclone Nargris and the death and destruction that is has wrought on the Irrawaddy actually a blessing in disguise. Now finally maybe there is a chance to rid the worlds of one more brutal dictatorship. The country was arguably better off when it was part of the British empire. The British connected Myanmar to the outside road with the Stillwell Road from India in the west. Today probably the only road in the region is to the Mynamar’s junta closest friends - China.

I’d Imagine that China needs Myanmar with political crises just as much as they are dealing with the Tibetan crises. In fact the 2 countries share an important fact in common: they are both Buddhist - and neither country have been able to completely break their populations faith and trust in the legions of monks who still live in the ancient monasteries. In fact only a few months ago it looked like the monks were going to make some progress in their human rights demands - unluckily not and they have since fallen off the radar with the higher profile Tibetans taking center stage.

What is a cyclone anyway and why did it kill so many in Myanamar’s Irrawaddy delta. A cyclone is another name for a hurricane and is normally used for storms of sufficient ferocity in the Indian and Pacific oceans. Low lying Irrawaddy delta is always vulnerable to storms - similarly to nearby Bangladesh. Unfortunately deltas are fertile crop growing and fishing grounds which attract farmers and fishermen. However as they live on stilts over low lying swampy land they are vulnerable to both weather and disease. Such areas are notorious for malaria, dengue and other tropical diseases which Myanmar has to deal with regularly.

Myanmar Map

Where is Myanmar - what does a Myanmar map look like? Well few accurate maps of the country exists outside of google maps of course. Myanmar lies to the east of Bangladesh and India and to the west of Laos and Thailand. It borders China in the north. To the south the country is lapped by the Indian Ocean where the mighty Irrawaddy River reaches the sea at Myanmar’s delta - famous for its beauty and the rare Irrawaddy dolphins. The dolphins are fresh water and highly endangered - quite possibly more so since Cyclone Nargris

Myanmar, is a total of 678,500 square kilometres (261,970 sq mi), and therefore the largest country in mainland Southeast Asia. It is located between Chittagong Division of Bangladesh and Assam, Nagaland and Manipur of India to the northwest. It shares its longest borders with Tibet and Yunnan of China to the northeast for a total of 2,185 km (1,358 mi). Burma is bounded by Laos and Thailand to the southeast. Burma has a 1,930 km (1,199 mi) of contiguous coastline along the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea to the southwest and the south, which forms one-third of its total perimeter.

Three mountain ranges:Rakhine Yoma, the Bago Yoma, and the Shan Plateau occur within Myanmar which run south to north into the Himalayas. The mountain chains divide Burma’s three river catchements including the longest the Irrawaddy River, nearly 2,170 kilometres (1,348 mi) long, flows into the Gulf of Martaban. Fertile plains in the river plans where most of the Myanmar’s population lives in the Irrawaddy valley, and delta.

The British raj in India spawned some of the most romantic works of the Raj by Rudyard Kipling novelist, short-story writer and poet, known for his tales about British soldiers in India and Burma, and particularly The Jungle Book and Just So stories and fables. He was born in 1865 in Bombay, Br. India, but lived most of his life in Great Britain, dying in London, England, in 1936. Kipling

Myanmar Cyclone Catastophe with a Silver Lining?

So what do u think? Will this cyclone finally catapault Myanmar into the 21st centuary - have 40,000 people not died in vain and will the democracy rise in the carnage of the Irrawaddy Delta? Will the news from Myanmar spell bad news for the regime? Finally will the Burmese people have some hope of freedom? The road from Mandalay to Rangoon may not be paved with gold but at least there will be a small chance for a economy which at least has huge un-tapped natural resources because of its 40+ years of isolation. Be first to leave a comment below