UN still waiting on Burma cyclone aid

ABC news

Updated Sat May 2, 2009 3:56pm AEST
Two million people lost their homes and about 140,000 lost their lives after the cyclone tore through the region.

Two million people lost their homes and about 140,000 lost their lives after the cyclone tore through the region. (User submitted: file photo: Kyaw Kyaw)

A year after cyclone Nargis hit Burma's Irrawaddy Delta, the United Nations says hundreds of thousands of people still need help.

Two million people lost their homes and about 140,000 lost their lives after the cyclone tore through the region on May 4, 2008.

The UN says it has received only about $136 million of nearly $1 billion that it appealed for.

Yet the amounts of aid being requested are just a fraction of what was spent on countries like Indonesia after the tsunami, and not much is forthcoming yet.

Reconstruction as opposed to emergency relief has barely begun.

The World Food Program's director in Burma, Chris Kay, says many survivors are still living in flimsy shelters and food supplies are contaminated by salt.

"Over 130,000 families we estimate are currently still living in shacks," he said.

"The other problem that we've got is because we haven't received the money required for the reconstitution of the agricultural production, we've got people who are in massive levels of debt. They don't have the way to be able to put the land to work."

Dan Collison, of Save the Children in Burma, says many survivors remain in flimsy shelters.

"Lots of people are still living in really terrible housing, up to half a million people still sheltering under the plastic sheeting that was distributed to them a year ago," he said.

"The second big problem is that livelihoods for many people still haven't recovered.

"The third big problem has been very very serious and widespread water shortages across the delta during this dry season."

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