As if the news of 70000 homeless people were not bad enough, now international NGOs providing relief efforts in Cyclone Giri effected areas in remote area of western Burma were reporting back that they were facing serious difficulty in fund raising because of lack of international media coverage for Cyclone Giri.
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MARK COLVIN: Two weeks ago, Burma was hit by Cyclone Giri, which affected 400,000 people and left 150,000 homeless. It's had very little media coverage. Tarpaulins, food and water are desperately needed. Many villages in the isolated western state of Rakhine were completely wiped out.
The rainy season has come to an end and the rice harvest is only weeks away but the cyclone destroyed thousands of hectares of rice.
Andrew Kirkwood is the country director of the aid organisation, Save the Children in Burma. He spoke to Alison Caldwell.
ANDREW KIRKWOOD: Well although we're nearly two weeks after the cyclone, it's surprising that the full scale of the destruction is still emerging. It's a very isolated part of western Burma and it's separated from the rest of the country by a mountain range and most of the area that's been worst hit are a series of islands.
It's very difficult to complete all of our assessments and get the information. Some villages have been completely destroyed and extreme damage to schools means that children have lost their route to education. We think that over 400 schools are unusable at the moment and over 100 of them have been completely destroyed.
And of course the timing has been very bad for people's livelihoods as well. The destruction of rice paddies, fishing boats and fishing nets has removed families' means to feed and support themselves.
ALISON CALDWELL: You spoke about the rice harvest. It's been reported that something like 15,000 hectares of rice paddies were destroyed.
ANDREW KIRKWOOD: That's been upped to above 40,000 and that's been just weeks before the harvest so and there won't be another harvest for at least six months. Yeah the timing has been really bad.
ALISON CALDWELL: There were reports also that more than 50 health centres were destroyed by that cyclone and that most of the boats that were used by health providers were washed away or destroyed and they were the only ways that health providers could get into some of those areas.
ANDREW KIRKWOOD: That's absolutely correct. On top of that the three main hospitals in the areas were also damaged, all three lost their rooves and one of them was extremely badly damaged. Even on top of all of that the cyclone was accompanied, as is always the case, by a tidal surge and in the low-lying islands the tidal surge completely inundated people's drinking water, ponds and wells and the salt water has made them unusable and this has happened right at the very end of the rainy season.
So unlike the cyclone that hit in 2008 which was at the very beginning of the monsoon season, so we were, we could rehabilitate ponds and wells and then they would fill up in the following months, this isn't going to be possible. It won't rain again in the area until May next year.
ALISON CALDWELL: Now there hasn't been very much media attention on this cyclone. I'm sure that worries you.
ANDREW KIRKWOOD: I was here and sort of and led a response to Cyclone Nargis two-and-a-half years ago and the outpouring of international assistance and it was a huge number, amount of media coverage and there was a huge amount of assistance that followed.
And this is exactly the opposite and unfortunately, because of the lack of media coverage, we're finding it very, very difficult to raise funding.
MARK COLVIN: Save the Children's country director in Burma, Andrew Kirkwood, speaking to Alison Caldwell.
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