Myanmar cyclone deaths leap to 15,000

MYANMAR: More than 15,000 people died after a powerful cyclone swept across Myanmar last weekend, including 10,000 in a single town, the military government announced Tuesday in state media.

The official New Light of Myanmar newspaper said the devastated town of Bogalay, in the heart of the Irrawaddy river delta where the storm swept ashore overnight Friday, had suffered most of the losses.

The cyclone pounded the delta and then tore through Myanmar's main city of Yangon. The latest toll marked a 50 percent jump from the estimate given on state television late Monday by Foreign Minister Nyan Win.

The storm devastated Myanmar's main rice-growing region, which is home to about 24 million people, or nearly half the country's population.

The destruction prompted the military leadership to make a rare appeal for foreign aid, which the regime normally screens closely. Yangon, Tuesday, AFP