Deep into the delta

A survivor of Cyclone Nargis tries to salvage parts of what remains
of his home in Burma's Irrawaddy delta.
Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

In his third dispatch, Jonathan Pearce describes the scene as a team from the aid agency Merlin delivers supplies to outlying villages near the town of Laputta

The quayside in Laputta looks out onto utter desolation. The sky is dark and it's still raining. From here a series of low-lying islands stretch across 50 miles of the Irrawaddy delta. Around 300,000 people used to live out there. In the desperate struggle to get help to the survivors of the cyclone, their plight is the most critical.

The closest island appears like a huge sandbank, with only a few stumps jutting out of the ground where houses once stood. The quay where I stand has been all but obliterated; it's now covered by mountains of rotting debris dumped by the tidal surge. A 60-metre (200ft) steamer lies half out of the water. I wait while a small boat tries to land, carrying a team from Merlin.

My colleague explains what he has seen:

There are still people out there, but in the zone we covered they have all migrated to one main settlement. We passed 16 villages that were completely deserted. All we saw were dead bodies. Most are almost unidentifiable now. I could make out the shape of a woman clinging to a small child, both twisted around a tree stump.

In most of the settlements there were no signs of houses at all. They were just patches on the ground, even the debris had been washed away. We went to a village called Pyin Thwin, and were told there were 2,800 people surviving. They said 200 people had died on the island, and 4,000 in 16 villages nearby. A few buildings made from brick and concrete were partially intact, but all the straw houses were destroyed.

They had received a delivery of rice every two days, but said it was barely a quarter of what they needed. I saw a group of women preparing a large bowl of prawns they had just caught. All four walls of the school were still standing and inside people were trying to dry-out rice from their store.

Those that had moved onto this island from smaller settlements were in the worst state. They had made shelter from whatever scraps of straw matting or plastic they could find.

The Merlin team had delivered water purification, plastic bowls and soap to the island. In these conditions the most important health priority is to drink safe water and keep clean. Without that, acute diarrhoea can claim lives in a matter of days. The villagers reported about 100 cases of people who needed medical care, most of them suffering from burns caused by the hail and wind.

A short distance from our base more survivors are arriving and taking shelter in the courtyards of a temple. The rain is now beating down harder than ever. The situation here is more critical than at the camp I visited yesterday.

Long sheets of blue plastic have been attached to the walls of the temple and stretched across the courtyard. They are raised barely 1.2 metres (4ft) above the ground. Underneath hundreds of people are huddled together in rows ten deep. Babies are crying, but almost everyone else is silent. They just keep staring out into the relentless rain.

Merlin's team distributed 500 metres (1,650ft) of plastic sheeting earlier today, but it's overwhelming to try to understand how much more help is needed: food, shelter and medical supplies.

I'm staying in a dry room tonight, but I can't sleep. The sound of the rain on the tin roof above me is deafening. All I can see are the faces of people sheltering under plastic and bits of straw.

Jonathan Pearce is an aid worker with British medical agency Merlin - The Guardian