Wind like the elephant's nose

Published: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:06:16 GMT

AYEYARWADY DELTA, 16 September 2009 (IRIN) - Just over a year after Cyclone Nargis obliterated all that was familiar in Khit San village in Myanmar's Ayeyarwady River Delta, a tornado touched down last month, causing yet more damage and reawakening old fears.


"It was frightening, we were really scared - the children already don't sleep when there is the slightest of winds," said Daw Thin Wain, wife of the village's founder, 70-year-old U Hla Han.

The tornado tore down the only school, which had been built next to the remains of a monastery - a stark reminder of the devastation brought by Cyclone Nargis in May 2008.

Nargis killed 140,000 people; the eighth deadliest cyclone of all time. U Hla Han lost 18 members of his family, including his wife, some of his children and grandchildren. A year later he married Daw Thin Wai. "I had to move on, I have to be strong if I have to lead my people," he said.

When the tornado smashed into the village on 10 August, the old leader thought the community was going to be put to the test again.

Burmese call tornadoes "Ley Sin Hna Moung", or "wind like the elephant's nose", to describe the destructive funnel. In July 2009 seven hit a group of villages in the same area of the delta; the biggest twister destroyed 30 homes in Kyein Chaung Gyi. Houses are mostly made of the broad evergreen fronds of Dani palms, and cannot withstand storms and strong winds.

"After Nargis we have begun experiencing more tornadoes," said a villager from Kyein Chaung Gyi. Some of the more literate residents have linked the higher incidence of tornadoes to global warming, but Robert Stefanski, a scientific officer at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), said he was not aware of any studies showing such a connection.

Tornadoes are violently rotating storms of small diameter produced in a severe thunderstorm. "They are also produced during and immediately [within hours] after passage of a tropical cyclone. It is possible that after Nargis the villagers have a more heightened awareness of weather events," Stefanski said.

A local disaster expert commented: "Tornadoes are a relatively new phenomenon for Myanmar. These tornadoes are very, very localized, hence not much information is available, but it is true that more than the usual number have been recorded recently."

More cyclones too

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international body, said global warming was likely to cause a greater number of intense tropical cyclones in the region. Before 2000, one cyclone made landfall on the Myanmar coast roughly every three years.

Since then, one has been recorded every year, according to Hazard Profile of Myanmar, a report prepared jointly by the government's Department of Meteorology and Hydrology, the Thailand-based Asian Disaster Preparedness Center, and other agencies.

The report said the course of cyclones in the region had changed, and often also altered direction within a few hours, making the point of landfall more difficult to predict.

Little has been written on the impact of global warming in Myanmar. Various climate models have predicted that the Himalayan glaciers and the Asian monsoon, which feed the region's rivers, will gradually dry up; the IPCC suggests that in the long term the Ayeyarwady Delta, the main rice-growing area, would be affected.

The duration of the monsoon has shortened since 1950 from between 145 and 150 days to between 115 and 120 days; Shrinking Monsoon, a report by Myanmar's National Commission for Environmental Affairs, called for changes in cropping patterns and the use of high-yield seed varieties.

Farmers in the region have reported that rising soil salinity is affecting rice yields and sources of drinking water. A huge storm surge accompanied Nargis, carrying salt water in from the Andaman Sea far inland, but farmers said they have noticed a gradual increase in salinity over the years. War War Khaing, a farmer in Thai Kone village, said his production was down by 70 percent.


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