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Cyclone wreaks havoc on Myanmar coast
By Aung Hla Tun YANGON | Sat Oct 23, 2010 3:30am EDT
YANGON (Reuters) - A cyclone that hit the west coast of Myanmar has caused widespread damage, a local resident said on Saturday, while a meteorological official said it was expected to weaken as it moved northeast through the country.
There was no word from the authorities on damage or deaths. State television said on Friday that Cyclone Giri had struck the coast near the town of Kyaukphyu, with winds reaching 160 km per hour (100 miles per hour), and could trigger a tidal surge of up to 12 feet in some towns on the Bay of Bengal coast.
Telephone contact with the area was interrupted overnight after the cyclone hit but a resident of Kyaukphyu contacted by phone on Saturday morning said the area had suffered badly. "Everything is gone. All the trees and lamp posts have fallen. Many buildings were damaged. Many people were left homeless," Ko Ba Phyu told Reuters.
He said he had heard there had been a tidal surge at some points along the coast. "We haven't got any information about casualties. It's too early to know the exact size of damage due to poor telecommunications," he added. An official at the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology in the capital, Naypyitaw, described Giri early on Saturday as an inland storm but had no details on the impact on coastal areas.
Coastal and delta regions in the Southeast Asian country are often hit by strong storms. More than 130,000 people were killed or went missing when Cyclone Nargis struck the Irrawaddy delta in May 2008. The Mandalay area northeast of the coast where Giri made landfall has suffered torrential rain in the past few weeks and residents contacted by Reuters said there had been flash floods recently.
There are a number of dams and hydro power projects in the region and some residents have expressed concern about the impact of the heavy rain on the dams. Residents in Bagan, an ancient city and popular tourist spot about 430 miles north of the commercial capital, Yangon, told Reuters on Saturday that two main roads linking Bagan to Mandalay had been damaged by torrential rain caused by Giri.
(Writing by Alan Raybould; editing by Miral Fahmy)
