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Officials say corpses are floating in the water as Myanmar disaster grows
MSNBC News Services
updated 7:19 p.m. ET, Wed., May. 7, 2008
YANGON, Myanmar - Bodies floated in flood waters and survivors tried to
reach dry ground on boats using blankets as sails, while the top U.S.
diplomat in Myanmar said Wednesday that up to 100,000 people may have died
in the devastating cyclone.
Hungry crowds stormed the few shops that opened in the country's stricken
Irrawaddy delta, sparking fist fights, according to Paul Risley, a
spokesman
for the U.N. World Food Program in neighboring Thailand.
Shari Villarosa, who heads the U.S. Embassy in Myanmar, said food and
water
are running short in the delta area and called the situation there
"increasingly horrendous."
"There is a very real risk of disease outbreaks as long as this
continues,"
Villarosa told reporters. Some 1 million people were homeless in the
Southeast Asian country, the U.N. said.
State media in Myanmar reported that nearly 23,000 people died when
Cyclone
Nargis blasted the country's western coast on Saturday and more than
42,000
others were missing.
But U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said that the cyclone's death toll
may rise "very significantly."
Villarosa said 100,000 may have died and that 95 percent of buildings in
the
affected area are demolished.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24497236/
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