Cyclone Bijli The Department of Relief and Rehabilitation in Bangladesh provided 450 metric tonnes of rice to four districts, 200 of which was sent to Chittagong. To prevent an outbreak of post-storm diseases, the World Health Organization activated 1,105 medical teams in the country. A storm surge of was also expected to impact coastal areas of Myanmar close to the Bangladeshi border. An estimated 6,000 fishing trawlers were to return to port by the afternoon of April 17. Following the devastating results of Cyclone Nargis almost a year prior, officials in Myanmar urged residents along the coast to evacuate. Thousands of residents
Politics of Myanmar the 22 million voters with alleged voter turnout of 99%) on 10 May 2008 in the first phase of a two-stage referendum and Cyclone Nargis. It was the first national vote since the 1990 election. Multi-party elections in 2010 would end 5 decades of military rule, as the new charter gives the military an automatic 25% of seats in parliament. NLD spokesman Nyan Win, inter alia, criticised the referendum: "This referendum was full of cheating and fraud across the country. In some villages, authorities and polling station officials ticked the ballots themselves and did not let the voters do anything".