Myanmar cyclone shatters homes and dreams of families

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He managed to hang on for 10 hours despite the howling winds and punishing rains of Cyclone Nargis, which decimated his life.

First the floods washed away his home. Then his newborn son died, unable to breath in the rain-filled 120 mph-winds. Ko Zaw Min's 9-year-old son fell from the tree about 30 minutes later and was swept away by flood waters.

Ko Zaw Min, whose wife and 11-year-old daughter also survived, said he held his dead baby through the night and finally let go in the morning to perform a simple funeral.

"I was so sad but could not do anything to save him," he said, dressed in the same T-shirt and shorts he wore on that tragic night.

The cyclone took away everything the rice farmer owned, including 70 baskets of rice from the last harvest that were stored in his hut in Kyungyangon South village in the Irrawaddy delta.

Located on the banks of a river, and not too far from the sea, the village a patchwork of rice fields, huts and some concrete houses along one unpaved road was directly in the path of the cyclone.

Every brick house was damaged, and huts such as Ko Zaw Min's, made of woven bamboo poles and thatched roofs, were rendered heaps of rotting vegetation.

"I lost everything and I am scared," Ko Zaw Min said, sitting in a brick house, one of the few still standing in the village.

"I have no idea what to do," he said, speaking in a soft monotone, his face showing no expression.

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