The Aftershock of Cyclone Nargis: Credit Crunch in the Delta

The majority of families in the Ayeyarwady Delta engage in crop farming, usually of rice, raising livestock or poultry, fishing or vegetable cultivation, and rely either on paid employment in these areas, or income through the local trade of the goods they produce. Cyclone Nargis systematically and simultaneously impacted each of these income sources: It flooded 783 000 hectares of farmland, destroyed 707 500 tonnes of stored paddy and milled rice, resulted in widespread deaths of farm animals, damaged 15 000 hectares of fish and shrimp ponds, and destroyed 200 000 fishing boats. In addition, 20 000 commercial enterprises were destroyed or damaged, severely impacting the future trade and exchange of each of these goods