The Cyclone’s Wake, Seen in Taxi Headlights

As the death toll from the cyclone that swept across Myanmar over the weekend continues to soar — the latest estimate is 22,500 dead and more than 40,000 still missing, according to some government officials — humanitarian aid and crisis workers are facing a serious obstacle: How to reach the country’s hardest hit areas, which are often also its most remote.

Even before the cyclone hit, many places in the vast Irrawaddy delta along the coast were reachable only by boat or helicopter, and now it appears that a combination of the military government’s reluctance and the storm damage to the country’s already weak infrastructure is making it even harder to get aid to many of those in need. The Irrawaddy delta is a swampy, densely populated rice-growing area that is now so difficult for outsiders to reach that few journalists have managed to get in, never mind aid convoys.

Full Article: thelede.blogs.nytimes.com