23 April 2009
On May 2, 2008, Cyclone Nargis brought torrential rains and a surge of seawater that flooded homes and paddy fields in the Irrawaddy Delta. Water was everywhere, but stores of fresh, drinking water were wiped out. One year on, DFID-funded water supplies and sanitation facilities are still providing a lifeline for the survivors.
Wreckage, death and salty water
After disaster struck, water quickly became the survivors’ number one concern.
“When Nargis hit, our village was flooded with salty water and the water we stored in pots was destroyed,” said 43-year-old Daw Myint Myint San, who lives in Ye-Dwin-Gone village in the Hlaing Bone area of the eastern delta – one of the villages hardest hit by the cyclone.
“Most houses and water ponds were wrecked, and we had to divide out the water from those houses which had survived the cyclone. But the water was not enough for all of us,” Daw Myint Myint San said. “We had to drink water from the pond, even though it was salty.”
For those first difficult weeks, the villagers, grief-stricken and traumatised, survived terrible circumstances. Ye-Dwin-Gone had lost a quarter of its 1,000 inhabitants, many of them children. First came some food assistance, and then, in June 2008, Save the Children came to the village and began distributing clean water. They also cleaned out rainwater ponds, which had been contaminated with salty water.
That was an improvement, but it was clear there would not be enough water to see the village through the long dry season.
Reversing the water problem
With funding from DFID, Save the Children supplied Ye-Dwin-Gone village with a reverse osmosis machine, to remove the salt from brackish water. The units supplied by Save the Children across the Irrawaddy Delta can produce up to 20,000 litres of potable water a day – a lifeline for tens of thousands of people whose traditional water stores were destroyed.
Throughout the delta, Save the Children has set up Water, Hygiene and Sanitation (WASH) Committees to ensure that water is distributed fairly, and also to educate villagers on basic hygiene to prevent outbreaks of disease.
In Ye-Dwin-Gone, Daw Myint Myint San is the energetic committee treasurer. Having lost her father and five siblings in the cyclone, she says working to help her shattered community helps take her mind off the trauma of what happened.
Struggling towards full recovery
While DFID and Save the Children have helped to meet the village’s immediate, most basic needs, full recovery is still some way off.
“There is still a long way to go – before Nargis we all had homes, but today [a year on] some people still don’t have proper shelter,” she told staff from DFID who visited in March. “I don’t think recovery has reached the halfway mark.”
Villagers in Ye-Dwin-Gone are also struggling to recover their livelihoods. After so many in her family were killed, Daw Myint Myint San has become the main breadwinner and has to find work in the paddy fields to feed herself and her 75-year-old mother. See After the Cyclone: Supporting Burma’s elderly poor
Key facts
- DFID has helped to fund Save the Children’s response to Nargis with some £2.5 million of grants, a significant part of which has been used to provide potable water, and to improve the health of villagers through education on water, hygiene and sanitation issues.
For the relief effort, DFID has provided a total of £17 million to non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including Save the Children.
- DFID announced in March that it will increase humanitarian aid to Burma by £20 million over the next two financial years (totalling a £25 million programme for 2009-10 and a £28 million programme for 2010-11).
- DFID and its partners continue to respond to the situation in the Delta and is assessing how best to respond to the needs of smallholder farmers in the run-up to the 2009 monsoon planting season.
- The UK has been one of the largest donors to the Cyclone Nargis relief effort. Its £45 million contribution has helped more than a million survivors.