Remote Yangon township sustains heaviest hit in cyclone
13/5/2008 16:57
A remote township, Kungyangon, in Myanmar's Yangon division in the
southern part, sustained the hardest hit by the recent severe cyclone storm
Nargis with more than 7,000 people killed and over 20,000 missing, local media
quoted survivors from the area as reporting today.
Seven wards and 46
villages in the Kungyamgon township, located on the other side of the Yangon
city across Yangon River in the division, were totally destroyed by Nargis that
swept the township along with others in the division and southwestern Ayeyawaddy
delta region, the Weekly Eleven News said.
In some villages, only 25 percent
of the population remained alive, survivors were quoted as disclosing.
The
storm victims of the township are being accommodated in 22 relief camps there
with food provisions taken care of by the authorities, the report said, adding
that cyclone victims of 390 households are also taking refuge in 12 monasteries
in the township, the report added.
A total of 45 townships in Yangon division
were affected with different degrees by the cyclone, of which 40 are still
declared as natural-disaster-hit regions with relief and resettlement measures
being under way.
A deadly tropical cyclone Nargis, which occurred over the
Bay of Bengal, severely hit five divisions and states -- Yangon, Bago,
Ayeyawaddy, Kayin and Mon on May 2 and 3, covering such coastal towns in the
Ayeyawaddy division as Haing Gyi Island, Pathein, Myaungmya, Laputta,
Mawlamyinegyun, Kyaiklat, Phyarpon and Bogalay, and 45 townships in the biggest
city of Yangon and sustaining the heaviest ever casualties and infrastructural
damage.
According to an official updated death toll up till yesterday, a
total of 31,938 people had lost their lives in the cyclone storm with altogether
29,770 people still missing and 1,403 injured.
Xinhua
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