Myanmar: Rebuilding after Cyclone Nargis

Youth helping in setting up statue of blessed Mother of God. @ACN
Youth helping in setting up statue of blessed Mother of God. @ACN

It was 2 May 2008, round about midday. Father Andrew and three of his catechists were travelling by boat through the delta of the Irrawaddy (Ayeyarwaddy) to visit some of the remote communities in the diocese of Pathein, which can only be reached outside the rainy season. It was then that Cyclone Nargis struck with full force. All of them died, except for the pilot of the boat and one other passenger.

Tropical Cyclone Nargis reached wind speeds of around 135 miles an hour (215 km/h). According to government figures, given on 24 June 2008, the cyclone claimed 84,537 lives, while another 53,836 people are still registered as missing to this day.

Six-year-old Arkher Soe was more fortunate. He happened to be standing on the beach at the time and could see his parents and his brothers and sisters on board their little fishing boat, fighting desperately for their lives. He ran into the water to help them, and his brother, older by two years, leapt towards him. Hand in hand they ran, fighting against the waves, but were torn apart. Two days later they found each other again and for five days they wandered about, surviving on nothing but coconuts. They were never to see their parents or their siblings again alive.

Today Arkher Soe, now aged nine, lives in a small village close to Kalaymyo in the hill country in the north-west of the diocese of Hakha. He was taken in and cared for by the Franciscan Sisters of St Aloysius Gonzaga, who travelled to the disaster region after the cyclone, in order to help. Today there are four boys and six girls from the delta region being cared for by these sisters, while another 48 orphans have found refuge in the provincial house of the congregation in Pwin-Oo-Lwyin. Their presence is a heavy additional burden on the already limited capacities of these children's homes, especially in terms of the shortage of space. Similarly, the St Mary's orphanage, run by the Sisters of St Francis Xavier in Pathein, today houses 87 children instead of the 36 before the cyclone. Not all of them are Catholics, but the Church cares for them all with equal love, regardless of religion and based only on their need.

The situation is rather different for Father Mathias in the Archdiocese of Rangoon (Yangon) he runs a boarding house for the children who attend his school. Before the cyclone there were 80 children living here during the school term, but today there are only 56, including 14 orphans since Nargis. "The parents of many of these children were already very poor, but now they have become even poorer", he explains. "Many can no longer afford to send their children to school because they need every available hand to help in the rice fields." For many years now this Burmese priest, who is of Tamil extraction, has been caring for a community of some 200 Catholics here (roughly 1% of the population), and for additional outstations, including one in the small town of Daydaye. On the day Nargis struck, he had been invited to a wedding in the capital Rangoon, and when he finally managed to battle his way through to his home parish of Kyaiklat, he found his presbytery extensively damaged and the religious sisters and the children in a state of deep anxiety. The cross on the front of his church had been blown down and the roofs of most of the surrounding houses had been torn off by the wind. "To this day the children still panic whenever a storm is forecast and flee for shelter into the church" Father Matthias adds. Otherwise, people are trying to forget the catastrophe and put it behind them.

Two weeks after the storm, work began on rebuilding. Even to this day not everything has been repaired yet. There were many building firms that shamelessly took advantage of the catastrophe and put up their prices for cement, corrugated sheeting and nails no less than fivefold. It was two months before the government intervened and put a stop to this profiteering.

"If you need rice, then come to me", was the message of Father Matthias in his sermons. And needless to say, they did, and more besides. He recalls the case of Yeleyaraja, a boy he met in the town shortly after the disaster. He was homeless, completely naked and starving, having lost every other member of his family of eight. Father Matthias gave him clothes, rice and a roof over his head; then later he took him to lodge with distant relatives in his home village. To this day this youth, now aged 17, does not speak a word. If anyone speaks to him, he creeps, whimpering, under his blanket. Unfortunately, psychological support after such a traumatic experience is something that most victims can only dream of. Only in Rangoon is there one psychologist from India, who offers courses for traumatised children and at the same time seminars for future course leaders. But this is no more than a drop of hope in an ocean of suffering.

But there is some good news also. "The spirit of mutual support was immense", people everywhere tell us. One young Catholic woman tells us how her Muslim neighbours were the first to look in on her and her friend. For a week they cared for the two girls, until the water had more or less drained out of their flooded downstairs quarters. And Father Matthias also tells of his parishioners, who quickly came to help with the major clearing up work in the church, even though they themselves had suffered major damage to their own homes. Given that the foreign aid agencies had been prevented from helping, the various dioceses of the country were at least able to send teams of volunteers to help out.

If one drives through the worst hit regions in Pathein und Yangon today (in so far as they are even accessible to foreigners again) it is at first not easy for an unpractised eye to see where the storm has once cut a swathe through the land. Rangoon was much greener before, many people tell us, and indeed if one looks more closely, one can see the damage to the trees, which have often lost their tops. Also one can still see damaged roofs and a great many makeshift huts with tin roofs, which serve as emergency shelter and which have still not been repaired or replaced to this day. Many people simply moved away to other regions or into the towns, and have not returned to this day, since in many cases the storm has destroyed the basis of their livelihood in their home villages.

The Catholic Church is still very much engaged in the rebuilding process – and ACN has also helped in a major way for this. So it is that the convents of the Sisters of St Francis Xavier in North Okkalapa and South Dagon have now been repaired, as have the church and presbytery of Father Matthias. He has also completely rebuilt the church of St Sebastian in Daydaye. The authorities were in fact relatively quick to grant approval for this, on the condition that the original size and style of the old church were retained. And at least the ramshackle makeshift chapel, with its tin roof, is now a thing of the past.

To know about this and many other similar projects in favour of the pastoral needs of the suffering Church, please contact our national offices.