Cyclone videos are underground hit in Myanmar

Cyclone videos are underground hit in Myanmar

Associated Press

Posted online: Monday, May 19, 2008 at 2219 hrs IST

YANGON, May 18
Hidden behind a stacek of pornographic video discs, Yangon street vendor Mg Zaw has even more sought-after contraband: footage of the destruction caused by Cyclone Nargis, which cut a deadly path through Myanmar’s heartland two weeks ago.

The storm ripped into Myanmar’s largest city of Yangon itself, but did most of its damage in the low-lying Irrawaddy River delta to the southwest. People are generally barred from travelling to the area, and the state television monopoly mostly has shown more upbeat scenes of the country’s military leaders handing out aid to survivors.

The gruesome pictures of battered and bloated bodies, seen in newspapers and on television around the world, are not so easily accessible here. Ordinary citizens have turned to their usual underground sources of information: overseas shortwave radio stations and satellite broadcasts with news from opposition journalists in exile, along with Web sites blocked by the government but available with some minor technical tricks.

Mg Zaw, who runs a video disc stall along Anawratha Road in central Yangon, said he started hawking the storm videos just two days after Nargis struck. “People buy them because they are interested in seeing what happened out there,” he said, eyes warily scanning for police conducting checks.

The discs are packaged in slim plastic holders with paper covers featuring grainy montages of bloated corpses floating in flood waters, collapsed houses and injured people being helped by villagers. Some sellers display them openly; others produce them only on request.

The videos show hand-held camera footage of bloated water buffalo carcasses, wooden boats parked outside roofless buildings and homes flattened by the storm, as well as groups of survivors squatting on roadsides with their few remaining possessions in baskets or bags. In one video, two stray dogs sniff the ground near the corpse of a young woman lying face-up on a coconut palm leaf.

The videos are being bought either out of curiosity or, some say, as a way of coping with the tragedy, which left about 78,000 people dead and another 55,000 missing.

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Cyclone videos are underground hit in Myanmar Associated Press Posted online: Monday, May 19, 2008 at 2219 hrs IST YANGON, May 18 Hidden behind a stacek of pornographic video discs, Yangon street vendor Mg Zaw has even more sought-after contraband: footage of the destruction caused by Cyclone Nargis, which cut a deadly path through Myanmar’s heartland two weeks ago. The storm ripped into Myanmar’s largest city of Yangon itself, but did most of its damage in the low-lying Irrawaddy River delta to the southwest. People are generally barred from travelling to the area, and the state television monopoly mostly has shown more upbeat scenes of the country’s military leaders handing out aid to survivors. The gruesome pictures of battered and bloated bodies, seen in newspapers and on television around the world, are not so easily accessible here. Ordinary citizens have turned to their usual underground sources of information: overseas shortwave radio stations and satellite broadcasts with news from opposition journalists in exile, along with Web sites blocked by the government but available with some minor technical tricks. Mg Zaw, who runs a video disc stall along Anawratha Road in central Yangon, said he started hawking the storm videos just two days after Nargis struck. “People buy them because they are interested in seeing what happened out there,” he said, eyes warily scanning for police conducting checks. The discs are packaged in slim plastic holders with paper covers featuring grainy montages of bloated corpses floating in flood waters, collapsed houses and injured people being helped by villagers. Some sellers display them openly; others produce them only on request. The videos show hand-held camera footage of bloated water buffalo carcasses, wooden boats parked outside roofless buildings and homes flattened by the storm, as well as groups of survivors squatting on roadsides with their few remaining possessions in baskets or bags. In one video, two stray dogs sniff the ground near the corpse of a young woman lying face-up on a coconut palm leaf. The videos are being bought either out of curiosity or, some say, as a way of coping with the tragedy, which left about 78,000 people dead and another 55,000 missing.