The donations being made to Global Giving on behalf of Myanmar are reaching people. Here is an update, posted today:

IDE Myanmar has operations in practically all of the cyclone-affected areas in the Irrawaddy Delta, and is hence positioned well to provide aid where most needed. IDE has targeted 20 township areas containing an estimated 8,000 -9,000 villages. About 125 staff have been mobilized to work in these areas - approximately six per township. The initial focus will be on providing immediate relief but rebuilding the agricultural and food security systems will receive equal priority and attention.

Project activities include manufacturing and distributing water storage containers and water treatment supplies, providing plastic sheeting for shelter, and directing cash donations to village-managed relief centers, so that they can purchase food for the vulnerable.

I would ordinarily apologize for asking repeatedly for the same thing, but I hate the idea of an oppressive government causing innocent men, women and children to die. Please give what you can.

Excerpt from the extended reports sent to Global Giving:

The immediate problem in affected areas is now survival, with water and electricity cut off, roads blocked by fallen trees, roofs torn off homes and prices for transportation and food rising fast.

“People are starving,” an unidentified resident was quoted as saying by the Democratic Voice of Burma, a dissident radio station based in Norway.

“Fuel is becoming scarce,” the resident was quoted as saying. “People are likely to die of starvation. If international help doesn’t come within a week, it will be impossible to survive. There will be nothing left to eat.”

Mr. Horsey, of the United Nations, said teams representing various aid groups were trying to assess the damage in the disaster areas, where half the country’s population of 53 million lives.
Despite concerns from human rights groups that the junta would not allow outside aid groups into hard-hit areas, Mr. Horsey said, “There are discussions ongoing. My impression is that they are receptive to international assistance.”

Some aid had already been stockpiled in anticipation of natural disasters, he said.

“It will take a few days until a complete and accurate picture of the impact and of the numbers of people affected comes out,” he said. “The road network has taken a significant hit and moving around is difficult, and the communications network is essentially down.”

Even without the destruction from the cyclone, travel and communications can be difficult in the country because of its weak infrastructure, said David Mathieson, an expert on Myanmar with Human Rights Watch.

In Yangon, he said, people usually get only five or six hours of electricity a day, and some remote areas have no access to electricity. “So the fact that electricity is down is not really that important,” he said.
Jens Orback, a former minister for integration and democracy in Sweden, was in Yangon when the cyclone hit.

“Trees that were standing there hundreds of years fell easily,” he said, “and things from roofs fell down and the electricity went down and there were only flashlights. In the first days you couldn’t go anywhere by car. No telephones worked. The Internet was out, and there was a lack of information.

“What struck us also was that in the first daylight, nobody from the police, military or firemen was out working with the devastation, but people privately were there with knives and machetes and hand saws.”

Aung Zaw of Irrawaddy Magazine said that groups of monks joined residents in clearing the streets but that in one case they had been prevented from leaving their monastery by armed police officers. As centers of the September uprising, some monasteries remain under police or military guard, he said.
In advance of the referendum, the riot police had been reported patrolling the streets in a show of force said to have been more visible than the current military relief efforts.

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