AN Australian family was caught completely by surprise in the cyclone that killed more than 10,000 people in Burma after walking "into the heart" of the deadly storm.
Pip Paton was in the country's former capital Rangoon for a long weekend away with her family when the devastating storm struck, but she has told NEWS.com.au there was little warning of the ferocity to come.
"We were in the heart of it when it hit," she said from her home Bangkok. Some locals had mentioned there was a storm on its way, but other than that they had no way of knowing what was happening.
They braved some rain to visit a local market when it was hit. The market quickly flooded and a blackout plunged it into darkness. Still, "electricity is a problem" in Burma, so the family did not realise the full extent of the tragedy until after the storm had passed.
"There was carnage," Ms Paton said. Huge trees had toppled and blocked roads, roofs had been ripped off houses and cars had been squashed, but "no-one really knew what was going on because there was no communication".
Rumours swept the city that the junta had turned off the water supply and that all supermarkets were closed. Ms Paton was told about one woman whose leg had been split open but who could not find help. In the end, an Italian doctor had treated her in a hospital.
That was when the shock of those who survived started to be replaced with anger at the slow response of Burma's ruling military.
"The day after, people were using old machetes to try to clear ... several tonnes of trees. The military didn't turn up until the day after that, Sunday," she said. "People were in shock."
"Once they did move them they might have found all these bodies underneath."
One angry local told her that "this is the worst thing that's ever happened" in the country, but that the junta was doing very little to help the people.
Ms Paton said she saw some military officers "just standing around, smoking cigars" in the aftermath of the storm, as trucks full of police in riot gear and carrying machine guns were swerving around stricken trees on the ground.
"I didn't really understand why that was necessary. We didn't really see any looting," she said.
Ms Paton said she and her family were left with little choice but to join in the relief effort. "We were just walking around, looking at things and picking up trees," she said.
Before the family was able to leave the country, they saw evidence of an exodus of displaced survivors. "Buses were packed with people, like you'd see in India, people were hanging off the side," she said.
Even as foreigners rushed to flee, the junta's response frustrated their efforts. Ms Paton said she overheard an airline worker complaining that it had taken him all night to convince authorities to schedule extra flights out of Rangoon.
"He was in negotiations with them all night and only got approval in the morning," she said.
She said the full magnitude of what she witnessed was only just starting to sink in, now that she was safely at home in Thailand. She said passengers applauded when their plane took off from the re-opened airport.
"It wasn't until I was on the plane that I thought: Thank God."
Source
No comments:
Post a Comment