Cyclone knocked over buildings in Yangon -aid agency

Reuters Sun 4 May 2008

BANGKOK, May 4 (Reuters) - Buildings were toppled by a large tropical cyclone that slammed into Myanmar's main city and former capital, Yangon, a Thailand-based aid agency said on Sunday.

The report, if true, suggests Cyclone Nargis could have caused major casualties as its 190 km (120 miles) per hour winds swept through the sprawling and low-lying city of five million people on Saturday.

Nargis appears to have knocked out nearly all Internet, mobile, land and satellite communications with the outside world, making it impossible to determine its impact on the isolated, army-ruled southeast Asian nation.

However, Kyaw Lin Oo of the Burma Democratic Concern, an anti-regime activist group, said he had spoken to a contact in Yangon on Saturday evening after the worst of the storm passed at around 7 p.m. (1230 GMT).

"The whole city is in a very bad condition. All the trees have been uprooted and some buildings have fallen down near Yangon University," he told Reuters in the Thai capital.

The university lies in the heart of the former Burmese capital, and is one of its poshest districts.

Source