Bloomberg: Myanmar Cyclone Claims Thousands as UN Surveys Damage



I saw this in the evening tv news. Everyplace is flooded, entire villages were destroyed. This surely affects Myanmars food production and contributes rise of food prices.

Population: 47,758,181

Growth Rate: 0.8%

Growth per year: 382,000

Growth per day: 1,046

Deaths: About 4 days growth.

I hate to be too skeptical, but how do they come up with these estimates of 4k dead? I seriously doubt they are counting bodies. And how would they be estimating, from what, based on what? I don't underestimate "inflated" body counts as an appeal factor for more aid. Please educate me on this.

The Myanmar government actually has a history of minimizing casualities from natural disasters, as with many other dictatorial regimes. Given the history of very high deal tolls from cyclones in the Indian Ocean basin and the fact the storm had a large surge over the most populated area of the country, it sadly does not surprise me at all.

Jack, what database are you using for Myanmar? My figures from the 'World Population Data sheet' of the 'Population Reference Bureau' are a little higher,with a daily growth of over 1 200 per day.

When I see a disaster like this (now reporting up to 15 000 deaths, including 10 000 in one town), and this translate 'only' into something like 12 - 15 days of population growth, I find that I cannot get my mind around what the horror of a die off must be like, and in world wide terms the population growth rate in Myanmar is modest compared with most countries in the world.

I used the CIA world factbook,

LINK

You're right about the die-off; it will be a wrenching change.

Death toll above 22,000 - Washington Post

Does the cyclone has anything to do with climate change? Didn't read anything about it.

It probably does, but the MSM media will ignore it as it is not at our doorstep. However, the death toll has a lot to do with destruction of the mangrove coastal forest that made room for economic growth such as tourism and shrimp farming.

BBC

Found this interesting, but over at this site they do a weekly short summary of some major phrases that show up in linguistics analysis of a "web-bots" program which essentially combs the net and attempts to give hints about future events. I could see how for economic and social matters it might be useful but figures it would be rather useless when it comes to events triggered by natual disasters.

If you look at the archives of this year, there were repeated hints of a wind related event this spring. (no they were not added after the fact I was looking at the posting when the game out). Some striking similarities to Nargis:

1/28/2008

"marker before the "wind" event/natural disasters of the spring, to which government reacts badly and ticks people off.."

Maybe it was just dumb luck. Natural disasters resulting in poor government reaction happen fairly often.

Myanmar Survivors Face Disease as Relief Awaits Entry (Update5)
May 7 (Bloomberg) -- Survivors of the Myanmar cyclone, now estimated to have killed as many as 100,000, are at risk of cholera and other infectious diseases as the United Nations urges the military government to accept foreign help.
More than 1 million people may have been left homeless since Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit the country formerly known as Burma on May 3. Teams from aid group Doctors Without Borders found 80 percent of houses damaged and meter-high (3-foot) flood waters in some areas of Daala and Twante townships, where 300,000 people lived, in the Irrawaddy River delta area. ...
Link

It now looks like there will be 100 000 people dead and probably tens of thousands more dead over the coming months and years from diseases and whatnot caused by the storm and aftermath. I imagine Jack isn't posting since these new figures came out because 1) it's still not enough to make him care or 2) he's too busy masturbating to 100,000+ dead. I'm not sure which is more disturbing.

Although to be fair, even if this amounts to 200 000 dead, that's still equivalent to a week's dead due to starvation.

Goodness! Three-and-a-half months of population growth negated.

They would need four such disasters every year to go into negative population growth.

To decline be a mere 1.6% per year, they would need one every month.

Wouldn't we expect a dip in the birth rate 7-9 months from now? Women not getting enough food or clean water loosing the pregnancies? Not as much baby making going on as people focus on more immediate needs of food and water?

I'm not denying Jack's premise... I'm sure the rest of the world is making plenty of babies as this goes on but if we take the principle and cast it onto a large global devolution of society (thanks to increased cost of oil and the products made from it) perhaps we would not need a death rate quite as astronomical as we generally think.

Hardship just needs to grow to the point that a) a large number of people die b) the survivors are unwilling or unable to procreate or keep the resulting children alive.

Entirely possible. On the other hand, the lack of alternative entertainment and the urge to attempt procreation might offset the issues you mention.

Notice the video scenes of Darfur - poor nutrition, disease, and lots of babies.