"It's Tuesday evening, 4 full days since the world of Yangon was turned upside down by Cyclone Nargis. We had known for several days that a big cyclone was in the Bay of Bengal, gathering strength for a run at Burma, but it didn't seem like an imminent danger. On Friday, some parents took their kids home early, but it didn't even rain that afternoon. We had heard stories that landfall would come around 6 pm on Friday evening, but at that hour all seemed quite normal. I laughed it off as an overreaction, and went to bed confident that at worst we would get a thorough soaking with rain.
I woke up on Saturday morning around 5:15 to the sound of banging windows. Our windows are poorly made, and are neither wind- nor rain-proof, while their latches tend to work themselves loose. We got up, closed the offending windows and looked out at some pretty intense winds that were lashing our street from the SW. Not a drop of rain was falling, and it all still seemed pretty innocuous. At 6:30 the wind died down for a while and we ventured outside to take pictures of fallen trees and bits of roofing that were coming loose from nearby houses. A quarter of an hour later, the winds reversed 180 degrees and picked up in intensity; allegedly they were over 100 knots. They didn't seem that bad, but our windows continued to pop open. After a while, I tied one offending window shut, and was rewarded by the sliding French door beneath it popping right through its rail and out against our outside grate. We pulled it free and laid it inside. It was an example of how low the pressure gets in the eye of a cyclonic storm, blowing windows and doors outwards rather than inwards...
On Saturday afternoon I set off by bicycle...I was amazed at the destruction I saw everywhere along my bike route, with every tall tree in the city seeming to be on the ground, and innumerable roofs missing. Already, though, people were chopping up fallen trees to clear roads, and running to the hardware shops for corrugated metal sheets and nails.
Over the past three days the extent of the damage has revealed itself gradually...
[An employee's] house disintegrated in the wind and she was hurled through the air by the wind. A huge storm surge came up the river and swamped her neighbourhood, sweeping many people away to their deaths. Many of our employees lost either roofs or entire houses.
Only yesterday, though, when we started to hear from friends and acquaintances, and to listen to the BBC World Service, did we realize how widespread the destruction was. To the SW of Yangon, two entire towns essentially ceased to exist, with a 3.5-metre storm surge just washing 90% of the houses away...
The big problems now are a complete lack of power, water and fuel. The phones came back today, but there is no city power, and diesel fuel (all imported) is in short supply to run generators, as the port facilities have been badly damaged by the storm. Many water lines have been broken by the roots of fallen trees, and many areas have no water at all. I have seen people digging under fallen trees to tap into water mains below. In the crowded downtown core, almost everyone on the streets is carrying a water bucket to or from a makeshift standpipe. With no power and no water, it's tough to live in this extreme heat and humidity. The big worries now are sanitation, housing for the hundreds of thousands of homeless, and a lack of basic supplies as the factories for things like compressed natural gas and bottled water aren't running (since they have no power, nor any fuel to run generators).
... The prices of basic foodstuffs and fuel have at least doubled, leaving many poor people unable to afford food or transport. The lack of CNG means few buses running, and those that are running are charging 6 times the usual rate; taxis have doubled their fares. Even roofing materials are running out. I don't know how long it will take for the basic infrastructure to recover; so many power lines are on the ground that restoring power is going to take forever. People can't live long without water, so that is going to be a real flashpoint.
... Already there are worries about looting and unrest. Amazingly, the government is going to go ahead with their shambolic referendum on Saturday (although not in the worst-affected areas), and we're starting to see openly hostile anti-government posters going up. I think that this cyclone is the last straw, as the government has failed utterly to do anything constructive before, during or after the storm. I'd love to see the people make the most of the horror and at least get angry enough to throw the military out."
