BURMA:Volunteers in Burma must focus on saving the most lives possible, writes a special correspondent in Rangoon
ALL NATURAL disasters are chaotic and unpredictable, but post-Nargis Burma is a standout for even hard-bitten aid veterans. "It's unprecedented," said one frustrated Middle-Eastern disaster relief specialist with not enough to do in Rangoon. His five-man team was planning to leave Burma after entering the country on unofficial visas had proved virtually pointless. But although unable to work openly, the team became briefly busy giving advice to private Burmese voluntary groups and expatriates sending aid into the stricken delta.
Many citizens' groups and business people are organising their own boats, cars and trucks loaded with rice, tarpaulin sheets, fuel and medicines. But the amateur aid groups have little of the expertise needed to maximise their sometimes Herculean efforts.
Sitting in a small room in a private arts school, a mixed group of Burmese volunteers including young arts students and teachers gathered to hear the visitor's opinions.
They have been learning on the job, on gruelling daily expeditions to affected areas with supplies funded by private local and international sources.
The foreigner lost little time in setting out some cold realities of the disaster-relief trade. In many situations, the onset of disease did not happen until the third week or so, he said. That critical time is just now arriving in Burma, whose misery is exacerbated by unseasonal pelting rains.
Volunteers poised with notebooks and pens heard that individuals suffering severe injuries such as extensive skin wounds or broken bones were "not the priorities" in severe post-disaster crises.
The focus must be on saving the most lives possible.
That meant tackling needs for clean water, food, shelter and sanitation first.
The energy used to treat an individual with severe injuries might be better used saving hundreds of others in need of clean water.
A Rangoon businessman who had just returned from a boat journey that reached isolated villagers including some with extensive wounds and broken limbs fidgeted in his seat. He was planning to return to the same area with rice, medical supplies and doctors, and left the meeting in a hurry.
There were discussions on the minimum amount of calories on which the average person can survive for one month. Children and the elderly need extra rations.
In Burma, many children are already malnourished, making them extra vulnerable.
The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) estimated this week that as many as one million children may be in need of urgent assistance.
The young volunteers surrounded by bags of rice and tarpaulin heard that in low-standard emergency shelter situations, one latrine is needed for every 20 people to prevent the spread of disease.
Everyone knew that such a ratio is nowhere near the case throughout the grim and rain-sodden makeshift delta camps.
One camp assessed recently by the UN had four latrines for 1,750 people, according to a spokesman in Rangoon. Human waste was visible around the area and the need for more sanitation facilities was "dire".