Cyclone Nargis: Devistation in Myanmar

Nargis, a female Indian name, was an intense Cyclone (hurricane) that tracked up the Bay of Bengal Monday and Tuesday of this week. It turned east and slammed into Myanmar (formerly Burma) packing a 12-foot storm surge and 130 mph winds making it a Category 3 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

As a side note - the Bay of Bengal played host to the deadliest tropical cyclone in recent history, the Bhola Cyclone of 1970 (Wikipedia has a great summary of this cyclone). Over 500,000 lost their lives in Bangladesh.

As of right now the death toll has climbed to 22,000. This will be the largest hurricane fatality count since Mitch (1) in 1998, which hit Honduras killing some 9000. (To this date, 9000 are still missing in Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala.) The U.S. wants to send help, but the ruling government of Myanmar won't allow it right now. Read more in this article from the Telegraph (UK). Watch this NYTimes video. Check out this Timesonline article.

Below are two images. First is a MODIS image of the Cyclone over the Bay of Bengal. The second is the track of the storm.