Cyclone Nargis embodied the ‘perfect storm’

Is climate change to blame?
Some environmentalists suggested global warming may have played a role. Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that warming oceans could contribute to increasingly severe cyclones with stronger winds and heavier rains.

"While we can never pinpoint one disaster as the result of climate change, there is enough scientific evidence that climate change will lead to intensification of tropical cyclones," said Sunita Narain, director of the Indian environmental group Center for Science and Environment.

"Nargis is a sign of things to come," she said. "The victims of these cyclones are climate change victims, and their plight should remind the rich world that it is doing too little to contain its greenhouse gas emissions."

Weather experts, however, are divided over whether global warming is a factor in catastrophic storms. At a January conference of the American Meteorological Society, some postulated warmer ocean temperatures may actually reduce the strength of cyclones and hurricanes.

Masters, at Weather Underground, said Wednesday that in the case of Nargis, the meteorological data in the Indian Ocean region "is too short and too poor in quality to make judgments about whether tropical cyclones have been affected by global warming."

Not enough warning
Despite assertions by Myanmar's military government that it warned people about the storm, critics contend the junta didn't do enough to alert the delta and failed to organize any evacuations, saying that made the death toll worse.

"Villagers were totally unaware," said 38-year-old Khin Khin Myawe, interviewed in the hard-hit delta town of Labutta. "We knew the cyclone was coming but only because the wind was very strong. No local authorities ever came to us with information about how serious the storm was."

The India Meteorological Department, one of six regional warning centers set up by the World Meteorological Organization, began sending regular storm advisories April 27. The information appeared in Myanmar's state-run newspapers, radio and television 48 hours ahead of the storm.

But the international advisories said nothing about a storm surge. And Myanmar, unlike its neighbors Bangladesh and India, has no radar network to help predict the location and height of surges, the WMO said.

There also wasn't any coordinated effort on the part of the junta to move people out of low-lying areas, even though information was available about the expected time and location of landfall.

"How is it possible that there was such a great death toll in the 21st century when we have imagery from satellites in real time and there are specialized meteorology centers in all the regions?" said Olavo Rasquinho of the U.N. Typhoon Committee Secretariat.

Protection from cyclones
Bangladesh has a storm protection system that includes warning sirens, evacuation routes and sturdy towers to shelter people, measures that were credited with limiting the death toll from last year's Cyclone Sidr to 3,100.

Atiq A. Rahman, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Advanced Studies and a disaster specialist, said Myanmar's death toll would have been lower if it had such a system.

"Taking some action to move people from affected areas would have dramatically helped reduce the numbers of causalities. Absolutely," Rahman said.

But junta officials and some weather experts said evacuating a large area with millions of residents would have been nearly impossible, given the poor roads, the distance to some villages and the likely refusal of some families to leave.

"Even if they warned them, they can't go anywhere. Or they are afraid to go anywhere because they are afraid of losing their property," said Lander, the University of Guam professor. "It is debatable how much of a mass exodus you could have had."

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