3,700 fishers presumed drowned during a storm in Burma

Along the coast of Burma more than 3,700 fishers have gone missing since a cyclone hit the region 14 days ago. The Irrawaddy Delta bore the brunt of the storm, with 70 mile an hour winds blowing many fishing boats and rafts out to the open sea, reported the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) on Monday in Göttingen. At least 200 bodies have already washed up on shore. Burma's navy has rescued 3,638 distressed fishers so far. "This is a tragedy for the people of the Irrawaddy Delta, and comes not long after Cyclone Nargis killed at least 85,000 villagers in May 2008," said Ulrich Delius of the STP's Asia section.

"Just as in that earlier catastrophe, once again the state weather service is to blame for what is presumed will be a large number of victims." The fishers made their plans as usual in accordance with the predictions of state meteorologists, who spoke only of a storm and wind, and not of a tropical low-pressure system. Most of the victims are members of the Mon, Karen and Rohingya nationalities. The authorities are still attempting to estimate the extent of the catastrophe. Officials are going from door to door in the fishing villages and asking about missing persons.

According to the estimates of local fishers, some 2,000 boats and rafts have gone missing since the storm began, of which only 1,500 were officially registered. That fact that many of the missing fishing craft are rafts is a result of the Nargis Cyclone catastrophe. Most of the fishing boats along Burma's coast, and particularly in the Irrawaddy Delta, were destroyed by the Nargis Cyclone. The fishers could not afford new boats, so they made their own rafts. That turns out to have been a disastrous development, as the rafts were at even greater risk from the storms of 14 to 16 March.

State authorities, the navy and fishers have mobilized some 400 ships in the search for survivors. Most of the missing boats were carrying coastal fishers. Larger fishing cutters from other parts of the country are more robust and did not capsize or sink, because they are more rugged and better built.