Myanmar 'relatively unscathed' by tsunami

Myanmar 'relatively unscathed' by tsunami

MYANMAR: Myanmar was "relatively unscathed" by the tsunami that wreaked havoc in other Indian Ocean countries last week, according to the World Food Program, which sent an assessment team to the army-ruled country known for its secrecy.

The UN agency said on Wednesday that the Myanmar government's official number of 59 deaths was in the right range, backed up by its team assessing food aid needs, the Red Cross and aid organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).

"We've spent a lot of effort on assessment in Myanmar. We wanted to see for ourselves," said WFP Asia director Anthony Banbury, putting the number of deaths at between 30 and 60.

The hardest hit area was the Irrawaddy delta region where some 10,000 people needed food aid, Banbury told a news conference in Bangkok.

But the WFP team reported that many fishing villages escaped serious damage on the coastline just north of Thailand's hard-hit resorts of Khao Lak and Phuket. -- Reuters