Three Angles on a Cyclone-Ravaged Primary School


Children congregate along the path to their blue tarpaulin-roofed temporary school in Kyone Sein Lay, a small village decimated in May by Cyclone Nargis, which claimed the lives of as many as 200000 people in Burma’s Irrawaddy (Ayeyarwady) Delta and is the nation’s worst natural disaster in recorded history. The brick remains of the childrens’ former school, ripped apart by the raging winds and thrashing waters, now pave the way to the new structure.


Twenty-one of this boy’s 122 classmates died in the cyclone. With approximately 150 lives lost, one Kyone Sein Lay resident considers his village “lucky” compared with neighbouring villages, some of which were washed out to sea with too few survivors to pick up and rebuild.


English lessons continue today as before, with students learning basic anatomy and simple sentence construction.

More stories from the Irrawaddy Delta will follow later in the week.

(For anyone who knows me and is wondering why I’m not replying to long-overdue emails, I’m sorry to say you may need to wait a few days longer. I will be away from internet until August 24.)

Author

Austin Andrews is a Vancouver-based photojournalist and occasional filmmaker with a penchant for finding the fantastic in the everyday. Contact him at austin [at] disposablewords [dot] net

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