How one family in Burma (Myanmar) reconnected after the cyclone
Cut phone lines and travel bans have blocked survivors’ efforts to locate loved ones.
By Christopher Johnson | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitorposted May 20, 2008 at NaN:NaN p.m. EST
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mae sot, thailand - Wearing a black shirt of mourning, Myo Khin spends hours every day on Burmese blogs, hoping to find images of his missing relatives in the Irrawaddy Delta.
Mr. Khin was able to contact his mother, who survived cyclone Nargis two weeks ago in Rangoon, and even reunite with her in Myawaddy, a town bordering Thailand.
But for many Burmese families desperate to find loved ones, the delta is a black hole of information, blocked off by security officials who have stepped up control of the devastated area, and restricted foreigners to Rangoon, the main city in Burma (Myanmar).
Two weeks after the cyclone, Burma still lacks a way for families to locate missing persons. After the 2004 tsunami, Thailand helped foreign tourists and Thai locals immediately find people via websites such as "csiphuket" and notices posted at hospitals, town halls, and temples.
Frustrated by patchy phone connections and Burma's propaganda-heavy state media, Mr. Khin says he has had to rely on Burmese exile media, prayer, and "magical telepathy" with his sister, who he feared was among "several dozen" missing aunts, uncles, cousins, and in-laws.
"The lines are often cut everywhere in Burma," says Khin at his restaurant in Mae Sot near the Burmese border town of Myawaddy. For six days, he tried to reach his sister in Lapputa and at the family's home in Rangoon. When she finally walked into the home in Rangoon, he was calling. For 30 minutes, she gave a grim report: Their homes and villages were obliterated, as if wiped off the map by a wall of water.
"Now I know everything," he says. "Government TV was wrong. My sister said 95 percent of Lapputa is gone."
Before they could comfort each other, the phone line went dead, and he hasn't been able to reach her again.
Disconnected in Burma
Phoning inside Burma is difficult at the best of times. Lines are often cut due to power outages.
The government does not allow foreign agencies to import communications equipment from abroad; they can only purchase a maximum of 10 phones per agency at a price of $1,500 each, according to a UN report. Satellite phones, which are crucial for agencies to coordinate disaster relief, are banned in Burma.
On Friday, the Burmese government raised casualty estimates to 78,000 dead and 56,000 missing. A UN situation report said Saturday that emergency relief from the international community has reached only an estimated 500,000 of the estimated 2.5 million survivors.
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