Davis doctor has close brush with Myanmar's deadly cyclone

Dark clouds rolled in, then a drenching rain. But there were no obvious signs that a catastrophe – wrought by a cyclone sweeping in with deadly force – would soon hit Myanmar.

It was not until he departed the storm-raked country that Andrew Tak, a Davis doctor visiting the Southeast Asian nation, understood the magnitude of the cyclone's toll.

"By that time, we were already in Bangkok. When we accessed the Internet, we saw the numbers going higher and higher," he said Thursday. "First we thought it was only 300. Then it was 1,000, then 5,000. Then 10,000 and 20,000."

Some estimates now put the death toll at up to 100,000, but the true extent of the devastation may not be known until foreign aid workers arrive in force. Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is ruled by a military junta that has kept its distance from the United States and much of the world.

Tak returned home to California on Monday after spending about five days in Myanmar as a missionary to dispense vitamins, aspirin, antibiotics and his Christian faith.

"We were there to spread the word of the Gospel," said Tak, who was on a mission with friends with his former church.

His group was bound last Friday for another coastal delta village after spending a night in the beach village of Ngwe Saung, near where the cyclone would later sweep ashore.

But the group's bus driver overslept, and the journey to the next town was delayed. Tak now considers the delay a blessing.

Before the group could get on its way that Friday, a man in uniform arrived at the hotel on a motorcycle. He ordered the group to seek higher ground. The bus headed for the inland city of Yangon.

"By the time we got to Pathein, there was a steady rain," Tak said. "Lots of wind, but nothing to indicate that a great cyclone was coming."

Tak's group opted to spend a restless night in a Pathein hotel. "You could hear the wind and rain. It woke us up. A lot of noise, roiling winds."

The fierce cyclone hit the country Saturday, sweeping coastal shanties into piles of rubble and killing tens of thousands of people.

"All of us are worried about the local people we were with. We have no way to communicate with them," said Jim Kang, a member of Davis Korean Church.

The next day, there was calm. "We had no idea what had passed," Tak said. The skies had opened. In the light during the trip inland to Yangon, downed trees disrupted traffic.

Yet, there was no sense of panic, he said. No rush – perhaps no chain saws available, he thought – to remove the trees from the roads.

"We knew obviously there was some sort of horrific thing that happened," Kang said. "We just didn't know how bad it was."

There were power outages. Gas prices began rising.

"At that time, our focus was to get back to our families," Tak said.

"The extent of devastation only hit us when we were heading home," he said, "and we were just horrified."

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