Disaster and hope

News of the Year: Hundreds have come to Christ following cyclone in Myanmar

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YANGON, Myanmar—The winds of Cyclone Nargis intensified at about 8 p.m. on May 2, and most who lived on the expansive, low-lying Irrawaddy Delta realized they needed to find higher ground.

Zhing and some of his neighbors thought their only hope was to scale one of the many coconut palms on his plot of land. By clinging to the feathery branches, they might be spared.

The gales whipped the trees in every direction for nearly eight hours, repeatedly splashing and immersing those who climbed the trees in the rising Pyapon River. Around midnight Zhing's house collapsed. The night, it seemed, would never end. "If you let go," he said, "you would die."

Thousands in the densely populated region perished in the winds and floods created by Nargis, a severe cyclone that became the worst natural disaster in the history of Burma, known now as Myanmar. Many more died in the days following the storm because water and food were destroyed or contaminated, and relief did not arrive.