"A lot of roofs from well-constructed buildings have been blown off. That would lead you to believe that less well-constructed buildings will have taken a really big whack," Tony Craig, regional emergency coordinator for the World Food Program (WFP), told Reuters in Bangkok. (Source: NYtimes)
YANGON (Reuters) - A tropical cyclone packing winds of 120 mph (190 km/h) slammed into Yangon on Saturday, ripping off roofs, felling trees and power lines and raising fears of major casualties in military-ruled Myanmar's main city.
The Internet, land, mobile and satellite phone connections were down and the authorities were forced to close the one airport serving the sprawling city of 5 million people.
A U.N. official in neighboring Thailand said U.N. staff had managed to contact a colleague in the former Burmese capital in the afternoon as the eye of the storm passed overhead.
"A lot of roofs from well-constructed buildings have been blown off. That would lead you to believe that less well-constructed buildings will have taken a really big whack," Tony Craig, regional emergency coordinator for the World Food Program (WFP), told Reuters in Bangkok.
The Thailand-based Federation of Trade Unions, Burma said the ruling military junta had declared states of emergency in five affected provinces, most of them in the low-lying floodplains of the Irrawaddy delta.
It was impossible to contact anybody inside Myanmar to confirm the report. A spokesman for Britain's Department for International Development (DFID), which has an office with 10 staff, said the ministry had not been able to establish the extent of damage because of poor communications.
The spokesman said its 10 staff, both British and locals were safe.
The electricity supply in Yangon -- hit-and-miss at the best of times in one of Asia's poorest countries -- failed after Cyclone Nargis started to lash the former capital on Friday evening.
There were no immediate reports of deaths, but meteorological officials said the cyclone could trigger a storm surge of up to 12 feet in coastal areas.
State-run MRTV and Yangon City Radio were off the air and the streets were virtually deserted. Buses and trains were not operating due to extensive flooding.
A spokeswoman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said officials from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Yangon will meet with the Myanmar Red Crescent on Sunday to assess the damage.
The destruction appeared extensive and it could be several days before power, telecommunication and transport services are up and running, possibly affecting a referendum on an army-drafted constitution scheduled for May 10.
The constitution is part of a "road map" to democracy, meant to culminate in multiparty elections in 2010 and end nearly five decades of military rule. Critics say it gives the army too much control.
Naypyidaw, the generals' new capital, is 240 miles north of Yangon.
An official at Yangon International Airport said all incoming flights had been diverted to the second city of Mandalay, in the middle of the southeast Asian nation, and all departures from Yangon had been cancelled.
An official at Thai Airways in Bangkok said the airline planned to resume flights on Sunday, but was unable to give details of conditions on the ground in Myanmar.
Myanmar weather officials said Nargis was expected to keep moving northeast from Yangon and cross into northern Thailand in the next 24 hours. A storm warning has been issued and heavy rain is expected to cover much of Thailand until Monday.
