Cyclone Nargis Cyclone Nargis posed 48 hours before it hit the country's coast. Relief efforts were slowed for political reasons as Myanmar's military rulers initially resisted large-scale international aid. US President George W. Bush said that an angry world should condemn the way Myanmar's military rulers were handling the aftermath of such a catastrophic cyclone. Myanmar's military junta finally accepted aid a few days after India's request was accepted. Hampering the relief efforts, only ten days after the cyclone, nearby central China was hit by a massive earthquake, known as the Sichuan earthquake which measured 7.9 in magnitude and it alone had
Cyclone Nargis initial uncertainty about the scale of the disaster. The final death toll from Nargis was at least 146,000, because there were 90,000 people confirmed dead at one point and 56,000 were missing. They were never found, so it was assumed that these 56,000 people were killed. Thus, its death toll would exceed that of the 1991 storm and make it the deadliest since the 1970 storm. It is now thought that hundreds of thousands of people will never be found after Nargis because their bodies have decayed, been buried, or were washed out to sea. Andrew Kirkwood, country director of