Myanmar / TC NARGIS (TC 01B) Update: 84,500 dead

[Chacor]

http://en.rian.ru/world/20080508/106938051.html

not sure if this is indicating that the 100,000+ is confirmed or not

100,000 is an estimate from the U.S. embassy in Rangoon; the junta continues to insist the official toll is just short of 23,000.

Ptarmigan: The Atlantic tends to produce storms with less cold cloud cover, at least in relation to the WPac, Atlantic or the Australian region. WPac INVESTs often have -80 to -90C cloud cover involved.

[Chacor]

I refuse to click on that link, and trust me, no one should ever believe the Sun. They are an unreliable piece of trash who make up stories if they think it could win more readers.

[Windspeed]

I think the pressure was lower than 929mb on May 2nd. The structure of the storm is deceiving; however, Nargis encountered minimal negating environmental factors to weaken the storm prior to landfall. The OHT was high right up to the western edge of the delta and the storm was moving eastward in a zonal monsoon trough over the last 24 hours that made shear negligible. As has already been pointed out in previous posts, the appearance of the storm's CDO and eye impeded proper estimates from dvorak technique. But if you look closely at the cloudtop temperatures in the CDO and the storm's structure in the microwave image below, it's not difficult to accept that Nargis may have reached category five intensity briefly before landfall.

Reviewing colorized IR and visible imagery, the core of the storm reorganized rapidly the evening of April 30th. Prior to that the storm had been battling westerly shear in the upper levels. However, once the core began moving with the westerly monsoonal flow at the surface, shear was abated and reorganization occurred rapidly. Diffluent flow was already allowing for some extremely intense convection. The eye reemerged around 0800utc May 1st and had 24 hours of explosive intensification until landfall 26 hours later at 0830utc on May 2nd. We have witnessed storms undergo amazing rapid intensification over the past few years. Considering the environment in which the core was imbedded, the storm may have only need 12-18 hours to reach category five intensity:

OHT:


Eye reemerging:


Right before landfall:


Last microwave before interaction with coast:


I doubt we will ever know for certain if Nargis really was a category five storm. Research teams may have little access to review structures to make an assessment. And poorly constructed buildings fail long before such wind speeds may have been experienced. A category three storm at landfall was likely sufficient to yield complete devastation. Regardless, I believe the immediate coastline and western portion of the delta did experience winds of at least upper category four intensity. Perhaps the storm was not a category five at landfall, but I can accept that it may have reached that intensity offshore, prior to landfall.

In hindsight, the final intensity is mostly trivial and for data records. Whether the storm was indeed stronger than the advisories at landfall is not the reason there was such a catastrophic loss of life, it was the total disregard of human life by the authorities in Myanmar that is the real key.

[Ad Novoxium]

500,000? No way. Sorry, but even if it runs concurrent to the population of that area, that's just not a believable report. It's like getting science news from the National Enquirer.

[wxman57]

500,000? No way. Sorry, but even if it runs concurrent to the population of that area, that's just not a believable report. It's like getting science news from the National Enquirer.

If you read the report carefully, it doesn't say that 500,000 have died. Here's a quote:

“They are hoping bodies will be washed out to sea so the final count is smaller – but it could kill half a million people within a matter of weeks. The world must know what is going on.”

The article says that the death toll COULD reach 500,000 in the coming weeks if the military doesn't allow aid to get through.

[JonathanBelles]

MSNBC has a pretty good interactive feature on the damage. One thing I had forgotten, is that the 2004 Tsunami hit this same area.

[Chacor]

The UN's World Food Programme says it has got permission from Burma to send a plane carrying relief from Bangladesh for the victims of the cyclone.

Two planes carrying aid supplies organised by Bangladesh's army have already been sent.

The UN says it is disappointed at the slow progress made in securing access to victims of the cyclone.

It says about 23,000 people have died in the storm and tidal surge and 1.5 million are at risk.

Burmese state media say 22,980 people were killed by Cyclone Nargis but there are fears the figure could rise to 100,000.

While flights from Western agencies have been held up, however, Burma's regional neighbours, including India and Thailand, have already flown in aid.

The World Food Programme has sent one shipment of high energy biscuits to Rangoon and has received clearance for a second larger one.

In all it says it will send half a million packets of the biscuits to Burma.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7391550.stm

And, this is just pathetic and outrageous:

Burma wants supplies but not foreign aid workers, its foreign ministry says, hours after the UN chief urged military leaders to prioritise relief work.

Burma was "making strenuous efforts" to get aid to affected areas by itself and was not ready for foreign teams, a statement in a state daily said.

It would accept cash or emergency aid, it said, but not international teams.

"Currently Myanmar (Burma) has prioritised receiving emergency relief provisions and is making strenuous efforts to transport those provisions without delay by its own labours to the affected areas," it said.

"As such, Myanmar is not ready to receive search and rescue teams as well as media teams from foreign countries."

An aid team and journalists who arrived on a flight from Qatar had been deported, it said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7391535.stm

[HurricaneBill]

I don't like the sound of that. I'd be concerned that the junta might use the cash and relief aid on itself.

[P.K.]

Breaking news on the BBC.

The World Food Programme has halted aid shipments to Burma after the contents of its first delivery were impounded on arrival in the military-ruled country.

The UN body says the Burmese government seized aid material flown in to help victims of the cyclone, which has killed tens of thousands.

The WFP said it had no choice but to halt aid until the matter was resolved.

Continues at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7392331.stm

[feederband]

Insane....What do you do?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/0 ... index.html

[HURAKAN]

This is unbelievable. I think the Myanmar government just wants to make the people suffer even more. In 1970, the Bangladesh Cyclone (East Pakistan at the time) caused the civil war that created Bangladesh. We may see something similar against this government from its people because it's just unbelievable how much you need to suffer before the government takes care of you.

[Derek Ortt]

can someone kill the SOBs of the junta? Impounding food shipments now? How stupid are those idiots?

I know assasination is not always the proper course of action, but now people's lives are at stake. If a government does not have their best interests at hand, then it is time to go

Mods, if this is too political, please remove

[gtalum]

I don't think the 500k number is out of line for a worst-case possibility. The military junta is refusing aid, and this morning the news has just come out that the junta confiscated the UN aid they had previously allowed in so the UN is cutting off further aid. Couple that with the fact that Myanmar's most fertile rice fields will be useless for years to come due to saltwater intrusion and the worldwide grain shortage, and the number of deaths ultimately attributable to this storm could reach into the millions, IMHO.

[feederband]

Genocide to there own people?

[Chacor]

Unfortunately, pretty much. The military junta exists for one reason only: to hold power. They only care about their own military people, everyone else in Burma is of no importance to them.

[tropicana]

interesting exerpt of a article i read:-

CYCLONE NARGIS POST SUMMARY
Fri May 9 2008
BANGKOK, Thailand — A cyclone with winds up to 120 mph. A low-lying, densely populated delta region, stripped of its protective trees.
When Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta and pushed a wall of water 25 miles inland, it had all the makings of a massive disaster.
When meteorologists saw the (storm's) track, they knew that is was not going to be good....it would create a big storm surge. It was like Katrina going into New Orleans.

Forecasters began tracking the cyclone Monday April 28 as it first headed toward India. As projected, it took a sharp turn eastward, but didn't follow the typical cyclone track in that area leading to Bangladesh or Myanmar's mountainous northwest.
Instead, it swept into the low-lying Irrawaddy delta in central Myanmar. The result was the worst disaster ever in the impoverished country. It caused catastrophic loss of life and destruction.
It was the first time such an intense storm hit the delta. It is one of those once-in-every-500-years kind of things.

The easterly component of the path was unusual, it tracked right over the most vulnerable part of the country, where most of the people live.

When the storm made landfall early Saturday May 3 at the mouth of the Irrawaddy River, its battering winds pushed a wall of water as high as 12 feet (3.6 meters) some 25 miles (40 kilometers) inland, laying waste to villages and killing tens of thousands.
Most of the dead were in the delta, where farm families sleeping in flimsy shacks barely above sea level were swept to their deaths. Almost 95 percent of the houses and other buildings in seven townships were destroyed and an estimated 1.5 million people were left in severe straits.
When you look at the satellite picture of before and after the storm the effects look eerily similar to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in how it inundated low-lying areas.
The Irrawaddy delta is huge and the interaction of water and land lying right at sea level allowed the tidal surge to deliver maximum penetration of sea water over land, storms like this do most of their killing through floods, with salt water being even more dangerous than fresh water.
The delta had lost most of its mangrove forests along the coast to shrimp farms and rice paddies over the past decade. That removed what scientists say is one of nature's best defenses against violent storms.
If you look at the path of the one that hit Myanmar, it hit exactly where it was going to do the most damage, and it's doing the most damage because much of the protective vegetation was cleared. It's an expensive lesson, but it has been one taught repeatedly.
Burmese researchers have found that 82.76 percent of mangroves in the Irrawaddy delta were destroyed between 1924 until 1999. That echoes a global trend.
The force of the cyclone could have been greatly lessened and much loss in life and property damage could have been averted if healthy mangrove forests had been conserved along the coastlines of the Irrawaddy delta.

[gtalum]

They must have some really bad stuff to hide, because allowing hundreds of thousands of people to die does not in any way help the junta hold onto their power.

[RL3AO]

The UN needs to grow a pair.

[Chacor]

The World Food Programme says it will resume aid flights to Burma on Saturday, despite a row over the local authorities impounding deliveries.

The UN body had suspended relief flights after it said the government seized tonnes of aid material flown in to help victims of Cyclone Nargis.

The cyclone killed thousands of people and left many more at risk.

The government denied confiscating the food, saying it had taken control of the aid to distribute it itself.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7392331.stm

[Chacor]

The World Food Programme says it will resume aid flights to Burma on Saturday, despite a row over the local authorities impounding deliveries.

The UN body had suspended relief flights after it said the government seized tonnes of aid material flown in to help victims of Cyclone Nargis.

The cyclone killed thousands of people and left many more at risk.

The government denied confiscating the food, saying it had taken control of the aid to distribute it itself.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7392331.stm