Khin Nyo San dashes from her tent to the nearby shack serving as a school, splashing down a muddy path in the desperate hope that a visitor from Rangoon might have news of her missing child.
”Please help me find my daughter, I beg you. She is five years old and a very clever girl. She can easily tell you where she lives,” the 39-year-old mother whispered to a visiting reporter.
”If you write about her, people from the rescue camp would tell me if they saw my daughter. Her name is Aye Myat Thu,” she said.
The missing child is just one of almost 54 000 people still unaccounted for more than two months after Cyclone Nargis tore into Burma.
More than 84 000 are confirmed dead, but for people like Khin Nyo San, who have not been able to find the bodies of their loved ones, every passing day is a torment of dread that they may eventually have to give up hope.
When the cyclone sent floodwaters surging through their village of Ohnpinsu in the Irrawaddy Delta, their home was washed away, said Khin Nyo San, and she clung to her daughter with one arm and her three-month-old son with the other, battling against the current to keep them from drowning.
She eventually found a relative in a small boat and hoisted her daughter aboard.
The rest of her memories from that night are a swirl of darkness and fatigue. She never saw the boat or her daughter again.
”If she had stayed in my arms, she would have survived. My three-month-old son survived in my arms. Now I have no idea where she is,” Khin Nyo San said in tears.
The Red Cross and the military government are using state radio to broadcast the names of children and others separated from their families.
For thousands of people these broadcasts are a beacon of hope for reuniting with their families, but in Ohnpinsu, which was nearly wiped off the map by the storm, radios are now a luxury enjoyed by few people.
Ohnpinsu is reachable only by a 30-minute boat ride from the nearest town of Labutta. While the village is only 200km west of Burma’s main city, Rangoon, reaching here takes more than a day of arduous travel.
Any visitor is a source of news, and residents gather round to ask if their loved ones’ names have been heard on the radio.
”Some people said they heard my mother’s name on the radio news. That’s why I’m still looking for her,” said vendor Khin Hlaing (47).
”I pray to Buddha every day that I will be able to see my mother,” she said.
Denial the only way to cope
Khin Hlaing’s father survived the storm, but when the family couldn’t find her mother as they sifted through the debris, he fell into a depression and stopped eating. He died nine days later.
”I was able to hold a funeral for my father but I haven’t heard anything about my mother. I didn’t think she could have survived after two months, but hope came back after I heard that her name was announced on the radio,” she said, weeping openly.
But even if her mother did make it into a shelter, and was identified by officials, Khin Hlaing has no money or transport to go and collect her from the emergency camp.
Others here freely admit that denial is the only way they can cope with their loss.
”I know that my mum couldn’t survive after two months,” said Maung Htwe (18) as he cooked rice for the rest of the family in the shack they cobbled together from storm debris.
”My mother cannot swim and she was afraid whenever a strong wind came. But I pretend nothing happened to me because I can see others who lost their entire families. Many people suffered worse than me,” he said.
”Now I just believe that she’s travelling somewhere,” he added.
The United Nations estimates that 22% of the 2,4-million severely affected by Cyclone Nargis are suffering from post-traumatic stress.
”We are counselling them as much as we can. Their stress would ease if we could ensure that they will have enough food, if we could help them re-start their businesses,” said Zaw Soe Hteik, a 23-year-old medical doctor who came from the central city of Mandalay to help storm victims.
Some in the village even said they would feel better if they had life jackets.
”I want the government to give us life boats, even life jackets. Then we could survive if there is another storm,” said Kyaw Hlain, a 57-year-old fisherman.
When the floodwaters destroyed his home, he held onto his daughter for 30 minutes as they swam for their lives, he said.
”I can still hear my daughter begging, ‘Dad, please save me’. She died while I carried her on my shoulder, when the third wave hit her.” — AFP
