Comments

To suggest that mangrove trees (assuming there actually had once been such trees in this part of Burma) would have helped people and that the disaster was thus "preventable" is like saying New Orleans was preventable because there had once been many mangroves. Humans constantly change their natural environment and that is foreseeable and in some cases almost necessary for people to individually survive -- as by fishing off the coast of Myanmar. It is unlikely that the government could have done much to avoid the disaster with "advance warnings". I just returned from northern Lao PDR, a neighbor of Myanmar. If the Lao third world roads (which are instant mud tracks in a rain), limited vehicular access and limited vehicle ownership (motor scooters are fairly common in rural Lao, but not everyone has them and the raods, as mentioned are hard pressed to handle serious traffic) are any indication of what the conditions are in the delta of Myanmar, five days of notice would never have cleared the place out no matter what we first worlders with all our modern roads, weather "guesses" we call forecasts, TVs, cell phones and autos might think. We didn't (and couldn't) evacuate New Orleans -- do you think the Myanmar residents would all have safely left behind their homes, limited livestock and way of life with the limited means to travel? Nonsense.