KYONDAH, Myanmar — U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon flew over Myanmar’s flooded Irrawaddy delta on Thursday, where the ravages of a cyclone stretched as far as the eye could see: Villages were empty of life, flattened huts dissolved into vast areas of water and people perched on rooftops.
Nearly three weeks after the storm, life was grim even at a refugee camp showcased by Myanmar’s junta during the carefully scripted tour.
“I’m very upset by what I’ve seen,” Ban said, visibly shaken by the firsthand look at the devastation, even though the areas to which he was taken were far from those worst hit by Cyclone Nargis.
Before his helicopter flyover, Ban had said he was bringing a “message of hope” to Myanmar’s people following the May 2-3 cyclone, which claimed more than 78,000 lives, according to government figures, and left more than 56,000 missing.
Myanmar’s military rulers have been eager to show they have the relief effort under control despite spurning the help of foreign disaster experts, and much of the tour was taken up by statistics-laden lectures to make that point.
The U.N. says up to 2.5 million cyclone survivors face hunger, homelessness and potential outbreaks of deadly diseases, especially in the low-lying areas of the Irrawaddy Delta close to the sea. It estimates that aid has reached only about 25 percent of victims.
The four-hour tour Thursday included two stops — one at Mawlamyinegyun, an aid distribution point stocked with bags of rice and cartons of bottled drinking water and the other at a makeshift camp where 500 people huddled in tents in the village of Kyondah, about 45 miles southwest of Yangon.
Still, the destruction in the region was relatively mild compared with Labutta and Bogalay to the south, where the Red Cross said rivers and ponds were full of corpses and many people have gotten no aid. Officials gave no explanation for why Ban was not taken to those areas, where most of the dead and missing were reported.
So far, no one at the U.N. has ventured an estimate of how long the Irrawaddy Delta is expected to remain submerged by floodwaters. But on Thursday, Ban said he expected the relief operations to be needed for at least six months.
U.N. official Dan Baker said junta leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe would meet with Ban today.
