On site at Pyapon

The kids and adults were at both side of the village road. Some clothed, some were on bared back. All of them were slim or even skiny. Their faces shows desperation, sun burned and tired. They were waiting for handouts from passing vehicles....

It was dusk, about 6.30pm and the scene was along the road few kilometres from Pyapon, a town about 75km from Yangon. As nightfall creeps in, I can only see dimly light of small lamp in filmsy thatched huts. I was looking out from the bus travelling back to the city after joining a Buddhist delegation from Thailand to deliver reliefs to the affected people and monks in the Pyapon district.

If it was during a better time, I would have enjoyed the laid back scenery of paddy fields; water buffaloes grazing the grass; ducks swimming on the river and even swines roaming free on the farmer's land. But how can I?

I smelled of an odour which the local guide told us was the results of many dead victims of the Nargis cyclone. The bodies in that area already been cleared but low level of rotting smell is still prevalent.

Those on the roadside were having high hopes that each passing vehicle will offer them whatever food or drinking water the occupants had. All of us cleared whatever pack of biscuits we had in our backpack and the snack pack given to us for our four and a half hours journey back to Yangon. Some even hand out the "kyat" currency in their possessions....

Along the roads we can see small attap thatched huts built by the victims whose houses were washed away by the cyclone. Some of the huts are still surrounded by swampy waters. Thinking that the area was recently surrounded with dead bodies, what choice do they have but to keep on surviving!

These observations were possible after I was invited by my Thai Buddhist friends to participate in the handing over of reliefs to the monks and cyclone victims in the Pyapon district. On top of that, it was intended to study and evaluate the possible future programs to help the cyclone victims. Since it will be beneficial to widen the scope of support, I asked the president of Young Malaysians Movement, Ng Chin Long to join in this delegation. YMM, a chinese-based youth organisations had responded positively to the call to help the cyclone victims.

Both of us travelled to Bangkok one day earlier on June 3 to join the Thai delegation early flight to Yangon the next day. The Thai delegation was led by the Rector of the Mahachulalongkorn Buddhist University, Most Venerable Dhammakosajarn. Members of the delegation includes the secretary general of the World Fellowship of Buddhists, Phallop Thaiarry, president of World Fellowship of Buddhist Youth, Anurut Vongvanij and Maechee Sansanee of the Sathian Dhammasathan.

The handing over of the relief supplies was held at community centre in Pyapon the same day we landed at the airport. Present to received the supplies was the chief monk of Pyapon district and other senior Myanmar monks. Also in attendance was Myanmar's Minister for Religion and local officials. The Minister was asked to offer these donations as dana to the monks, meaning that the relief supplies will be taken care by the monks and will be distributed to 278 temples throughout the Pyapon district.

The relief supplies includes 10,000 pieces of robes, rice, biscuits, drinks, cooking utensils, water filter machines and others. The donations were worth about 7 million Baht and was publicly announced and registered in front of the monks, officials overseas delegation and members of the media from Thailand and Myanmar.


Even though we were not brought to the main disaster area like Bogalay, being in Pyapon itself is already a breakthrough. Many relief groups were only allowed to hand over the donations in and around Yangon or even at the airport itself, without even going into disaster areas. To reach Pyapon we had to undergo at least four sentry checks by the army and travelled on some roads (if I can called it as one) that have huge pot holes and it is much more like riding a horse than sitting on a bus. That's why a normal journey of 75km that's takes only less than an hour say in Malaysia, took us about 4 and 1/2 hours to reach Pyapon. That's a total of 9 hours ride to hand over the stuffs that lasted one hour.

Anyhow, we were able to reach Pyapon is due to the early arrangement by the Ven. Dhammakosajarn with a local Myanmar contact in Yangon who oversees the cyclone rehabilitation efforts for Pyapon district.

This hand over is only a beginning. There still much to be done for the cyclone victims. One of the early response will be establishing a system to support about 400Nargis orphans whom will be housed at the Naga Buddhist Temple, nearby the international airport.

I think once the main disaster areas had been cleared of major signs of destruction, more relief teams will be able to go deeper into the Irrawady Delta to help the victims. Then, more work will be required to help the people.