The Canadian Press

Canadian aid worker says efforts to help cyclone Nargis victims slow process

Wed Jul 30, 1:02 PM

By Pat Hewitt, The Canadian Press

TORONTO - This weekend marks three months since cyclone Nargis swept into Myanmar leaving a path of destruction, and a Canadian aid worker says initial relief efforts to help victims of the devastating storm will take three months longer than expected to complete.

Andrew Kirkwood, Save the Children's Myanmar director, said Wednesday from Minden, Ont., where he's on a brief leave, that distributing items such as cooking and eating utensils, plastic containers, blankets, clothes and mosquito nets to disaster victims usually takes about three months.

But he expects it will take six months to finish that task in Myanmar, also known as Burma, which was hit by the cyclone May 2-3. An official count said Nargis killed 84,537, left 53,836 missing and presumed dead, and left 2.4 million survivors.

"We're not at that point in Burma and we expect the first phase response, the continuation of the distribution of essential household items, to continue for another three months," he said.

Distributing the aid is a slow, painstaking process, with Kirkwood saying most of about 2,000 villages in need are accessible only by boat in an area that's twice the size of Lebanon.

Some 8,100 square kilometres of rice paddy were left submerged and 85 per cent of seed stocks were destroyed along with boats and fishing equipment.

With the planting season set to end in August, Kirkwood noted many people have lost the ability to plant a rice crop "and therefore will rely on food distribution for the next six months and for some people, until about November 2009."

Kirkwood, who has spent the past four years in Myanmar, said Save the Children has helped get more than 100 schools up and running with temporary tents and repairing roofs. But he said more than 2,000 schools are so badly damaged they aren't being used - leaving 360,000 primary school-aged children unable to go back to school in next couple of months.

"That will be a huge part of our effort going, for the next 12 months, to get those schools up and running because that will minimize the traumatic effect on children," said Kirkwood.

He estimated about 80 per cent of the $187 million originally appealed for by the UN and non-governmental organizations has been received. He said a new appeal launched this month seeks an additional $300 million.

The relief group said it has provided food, water, oral-rehydration salts, shelter materials and medical services to more than half a million people since the cyclone hit.

Nargis caused an estimated $4 billion in damage, destroyed 450,000 homes and damaged 350,000 others.

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