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Burma Cyclone Death Toll Rises to 45

03 November 2010 04:11 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. U.N. officials say the number of people killed by a cyclone that hit western Burma last month has risen to 45, with another 10 people missing, APA reports quoting voanews.com website.
Officials speaking in Geneva Tuesday, said Cyclone Giri also injured 49 people and left 81,000 homeless after battering the Burmese state of Rakhine on October 22.
U.N. aid coordination office spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs says 200,000 people affected by the storm will need food aid for the next three months. Giri wiped out 16,000 heactares of rice paddies just weeks before harvest.
Byrs says U.N. agencies and other aid groups are working with Burmaâ€™s military rulers to distribute food and other supplies to the region.
She says Burmese authorities have requested tarpaulins to provide shelter to the homeless after the storm destroyed about 15,000 houses.
U.N. officials credited Burma with making better preparations for Giri than for a more powerful cyclone, Nargis, that struck the Irrawaddy delta in 2008. The officials say Burmese authorities learned good lessons from the earlier storm, which left 130,000 people dead or missing.