Monday 12 May 2008

"To my eyes  which have seen the Tsunami and the Kashmir earthquake,  this is just overwhelming," said a Caritas worker inside Burma when Cyclone Nargis struck.
 
The aid worker who wanted to remain anonymous said, "nature unleashed an orgy of death and mayhem, wounding an already suffering population". Caritas who has been working through local partners since the cyclone lifted last Saturday continues to attempt to get an outside team of disaster response experts into Burma.
 
"It is clear the scale of this disaster teeters on becoming a human catastrophe unless we get emergency teams into the most remote and isolated parts of the affected areas – many of which are yet to receive assistance to this point," said Caritas Australia CEO Jack de Groot.

The Caritas worker was in Phyapon, down Irrawady river, when the cyclone hit.

"The bodies of human beings and cattle were floating alongside our boat. We reached a destroyed village and were the first outsiders to reach them. Cyclone Nargis bombed them, flattened them and left them rattled with their spirit rattled," the worker said.

"As our boat moved along, the body of a five old  boy drifted by, (the) child of a mourning mother somewhere, the boy drifting in an unknown waters, waiting for a burial, unwept  and unsung.

"People do not have drinking water and food. Their settlements were crushed to pieces, the decaying debris, in the water logged riverways emanates a terrible smell. Food has run out. We witnessed children biting at old coconut shells as we went in.
 
"Dead people and animals are everywhere. The people neither have the energy nor the will to bury them. There were many refugees, living in roofless churches and monasteries. Help has not reached them," said the anonymous aid worker.

Mr de Groot issued a plea to the Burmese Military Junta.

"We plead with the leaders in Burma to please, please, please allow international access to the international community who can offer critically needed assistance in Burma. The need is so urgent for international access. We can still avert a human catastrophe but our window of opportunity is diminishing quickly," said Mr de Groot.
 
"The medical infrastructure in Burma is already at breaking point. If cholera or amoebic dysentery breaks out it could quickly claim the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

"We are doing what is possible in Burma.  [In the] last two days we are reaching out to the starving people, through the teams of volunteers Caritas has on the ground said the unnamed aid worker."

Caritas Australia is conducting an appeal to assist those affected. To donate to Caritas Australia’s Burma Cyclone Appeal call 1800 024 413 or via www.caritas.org.au.