Ruth Bradley-Jones

Cyclone Nargis: One year later

At the weekend I cycled an hour out of Yangon into the delta area which was hit so devastatingly by cyclone Nargis a year ago. As I cycled over the farm land, it was impossible not to think about the terror the villagers must have gone through that night, as 120-mile-an hour winds ripped through these peoples’ lives, the darkness never ending, calling for their children who had been wrenched from their arms by the beating wind and rain, and the scars left on their hands from the hours of clinging to a sodden palm tree.

Although the sky had been a clear blue when I’d left home, a crack of thunder brought a sudden bank of thick cloud, followed by forks of lightening, then the heavy drops of the first of the monsoon rain. A family beckoned me into their house as the sky turned to a heavy grey colour and the rain threw itself angrily onto the parched ground. One of the kids was almost crying, the storm evoking the trauma they’d all gone through a year ago. Their house was the only house made of concrete in the village and one of three, out of eighty, that had been left standing after the cyclone.

Most of the people who live in the delta are poor farmers, with low income, high debt and dependent on rice production. Their quality of life – access to health care and education, decent shelter, food and clothing – has never been good. The cyclone has made them poorer, even more dependent on hand-to-mouth living.

Aid agencies, local organisations and volunteers worked hard to provide basic support to the estimated two million people affected. I have been amazed every day by the untiring efforts of human kindness to provide assistance to those in dire need. The sense of social support and volunteer spirit in Myanmar is stronger than anywhere else I’ve lived in the world.

As the sun reappeared and I cycled – muddily - homewards, I noticed families patching up parts of their plastic roofing (some of which I recognised as DFID emergency sheets). Most of these houses, thatched bamboo and wooden huts, are unlikely to survive the monsoon season and would not protect a family against another cyclone.

What will see these people through the rainy season apart from a gritty resilience? The hope of a better summer crop and some proof that they have not been forgotten.

Posted at 16:32 28 April 2009 by Ruth Bradley-Jones  |  Comments[0]