Orkaan Giri: Wordt Myanmar opnieuw verrast?

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Cyclone Giri likely to cross Myanmar coast on Friday night

A very severe cyclonic storm "Giri" over north-east Bay of Bengal is likely to intensify further and move northeastwards and cross the Myanmar coast between Sittwe and Kyaupyu by tonight, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

A bulletin issued by the IMD said the cyclone remained practically stationary and lay centred at 1130 hours today near latitude 19 degrees North and 93 degrees East, about 150 km south of Sittwe and 110 km west-southwest of Kyaukpyu, 240 south-southeast of Teknaf in Bangladesh and 650 km southeast of Digha in West Bengal.

Since the system is likely to move towards Myanmar coast, it is not expected to affect the east coast of India, the IMD said.

However, the system is under constant watch and the concerned state governments would be informed accordingly, the bulletin added.

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Op vrijdag 22 oktober 2010 21:29 schreef SpeedyGJ het volgende:
Cat4
present wind distribution:
Max sustained winds - 125 kt, gusts 150 kt
wind radii valid over open water only

Windsnelheid van 231km/h

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Cyclone Giri Strikes Myanmar with Devastating Force

Potentially catastrophic Tropical Cyclone Giri has struck Myanmar as a Category 4 storm.

As the eye of Giri reached the coast near midmorning, EDT, highest winds reached 140 to 145 mph, or high enough for extreme damage at the site of landfall.

The site of landfall was about 40 miles southeast of Sittwe (Akyab), or 250 miles northwest of Yangon, the Myanmar capital. It includes many coastal islands, some of them low-lying with many tidal channels, but also some high ground.

Storms of this intensity can raise storm surges 12 to 18 feet above normal tide.

Some consolation, however, may be that this storm was fairly small, with a relatively narrow swath of hurricane-force winds at the time of landfall.

Eye of Giri makes landfall in Myanmar as of 10/22/2010 (Credit: Navy Research Lab Monterrey).
Farming communities and small settlements are in the area of landfall, but not any major cities.

Headed for the Arakan Range, this storm will break up quickly inland, so the spread of its destructive winds will be confined to a small area. However, flooding rain, a serious threat from the coast to the mountains, could spill eastward to areas of interior central Myanmar through Saturday.

Myanmar has experienced major cyclone strikes in past. An extreme example would be Cyclone Nargis, which devastated the Irrawaddy River Delta in April 2008. Nargis killed at least 138,000 people, mostly by way of its high tidal surge, which spread over a wide swath of the flood-prone, populous Delta.

Myanmar is also known as Burma.

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Within a day of forming over the north Indian Ocean, Cyclone Giri intensified into a powerful Category 5 cyclone. This image, taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite, shows the storm moving ashore over Myanmar (Burma) at 1:25 p.m. local time (6:55 UTC) on October 22, 2010.

The image shows a compact, mature storm with a well-defined eye and a circular shape. (Winds that break cyclones apart also distort the circular shape.) At the time, Giri had winds estimated at 125 knots (230 kilometers per hour or 140 miles per hour), a Category 4 storm. The storm was stengthening explosively, said the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. Just 6 hours earlier, Giri’s winds had been at 85 knots (160 km/hr or 100 mph). Five hours after the image was acquired, winds reached 135 knots (250 km/hr or 155 mph), making Giri the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane.

The last large cyclone to strike Myanmar, Cyclone Nargis, had winds of 115 knots (210 km/hr or 130 mph) at its strongest. Nargis hit the low-lying and populated Irrawaddy Delta on May 3, 2008, causing extensive flooding that left more than 100,000 dead. Though stronger than Nargis, Giri was moving toward a less populated and less vulnerable region. The government had issued warnings ahead of the storm, reported CNN.

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Thousands homeless after Giri struck
Thousands of people have been left homeless by a cyclone that struck western Burma on Friday.

Cyclone Giri cut many communication links to Rakhine state, and only now is the full extent of the damage emerging.

Residents say about four-thousand people have lost their homes, and that Buddhist monks and nuns have set up relief shelters.

"Damage to property is huge. Nearly all the houses made of bamboo and thatch were completely destroyed," businessman Ko Kyaw Khin said.

"Monks and private well-wishers are providing these people whatever food they can with their limited resources," he added.

A government official who declined to be identified told Reuters at least one person was killed, and that relief supplies are being sent in by plane and boat.

"We are still surveying the damage and casualties while carrying out relief work," he said.

The official says there are fears for residents on the islands of Kyunthaya and Ngapathon off the Burmese coast.

"We've heard a number of villagers there were completely covered with water," he said, adding that boats are being sent out to investigate

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Zeker 29 doden in Myanmar na Giri

Vrijdag richtte een cycloon verwoestingen aan de westkust van het Zuid-Aziatische land aan. Zeker 29 mensen zijn om het leven gekomen door storm Giri, die inmiddels is afgezwakt tot een tropische depressie. Meerdere dorpen zijn verwoest, berichtten de staatskrant Irrawaddy en bronnen van het Internationale Rode Kruis maandag.

De meeste doden zijn gevallen in de gemeente Myaypone in de deelstaat Rakhine. Gevreesd wordt dat het aantal slachtoffers tot honderd kan oplopen. Volgens lokale inwoners worden tientallen buurtbewoners en vissers nog vermist. Honderden woningen zijn weggeblazen, straten overstroomd en bomen omgewaaid. Zo'n vijfduizend Myanmarezen zijn dakloos geraakt. Het Rode Kruis heeft zakken rijst en tenten naar het gebied gestuurd.

In 2008 werd het land getroffen door de cycloon Nargis. Toen vielen er 130.000 doden.

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Op maandag 25 oktober 2010 15:00 schreef Burnie88 het volgende:
Ik vind het eigenlijk wel ongelofelijk dat er zo weinig slachtoffers zijn gevallen voor een cat. 5 landfall. Dat kan bijna niet.

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Op maandag 25 oktober 2010 18:19 schreef Basp1 het volgende:

[..]

Het is bijna noord korea, maar dan nog zonder nucleare ambities.