Early reports around Cyclone Nargis that hit Myanmar last Saturday point to tremendous building destruction and around 350 death. But something does not feel quite right in this figure. While fairly ugly, these numbers do not correlate very well with the type of news flow that is received after cyclones, or most important the way that news come from Myanmar. Either this is a slow news day and this is being picked up to fill the front pages, or unfortunately, there is something much bigger going on, and we might be reading very soon figures of a catastrophe of much bigger proportions.

What leads me to think this is fundamentally based on two aspects. First, how often does the military junta of Myanmar see itself committed to release news to the outside world regarding the situation of the country? After all it would seem that main sources are coming from withing the dictatorship, and based on precedent their communications are less than reliable. Second, from whatever little is know about the country, preparedness does not seem to be a key element of concern for the rulers of Myanmar if it were ever a concern at all, even on the heels and lessons learned form the 2004 Tsunami that also affected Myanmar. Compared to other countries the loss was significant but not very high. Independent media reports at the time talked about 90 people killed while the official death toll was 61, although others estimated up to 600 deaths. With such a diverging range, what offers any reliability as to the accuracy of the estimate? Are we being too quick to make news with figures around something that for now is intangible. Moreover, Myanmar is one of the poorest, maybe the poorest, country in the region, this alone is quite a deadly factor when facing a natural event of this magnitude.

I wish that 350 were an figure that we could dismiss and even downgrade because we are looking at a prepared country, with adequate programs, openness and infrastructures. Unfortunately, I fear this is too quick a number, and unfortunately we may see it change it dramatically in the following days.