旅美缅甸人士：我们能做的唯有祈祷

纽约每日新闻报道：缅甸的强热带风暴使死亡人数不断增加，暂居美国的缅甸人士心急如焚，他们疯狂拨打电话，以与家人取得联系。但是，电话能够接通的少之又少。亲人生死未卜，很多人决定飞回仰光看望。

一位牧师打算组织一次救灾工作，但他不确定缅甸的军政府是否会允许。他说：“我们的国家非常封闭，现在，我们所能做的只有祈祷。”

'Right now, all we can do is pray,' say local relatives of Myanmar victims

By Oren Yaniv and Corky Siemaszko
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Tuesday, May 6th 2008, 4:00 AM

As the death toll soared from the ferocious cyclone that pounded Myanmar, Burmese expats in New York Monday frantically called home for word of their loved ones.

Few got through.

"Normally we can chat on the Internet, but now, nothing," said Phillip Win, 50, of Brooklyn, who had been trying to reach his wife and two sons in Yangon (Rangoon), the capital of Myanmar. "There is no electricity."

Win's friend Kyaoo Kyaoo, 21, spent most of the day online, looking for signs that his father and four siblings in Yangon were all right. He said his heart leapt a little when he got through to a friend, who lives near them, but was soon disappointed.

"She didn't know anything, she can't contact anybody," Kyaoo said. "She just knows that in Rangoon everything is destroyed."

Kyaoo said that he will fly home if he doesn't hear from his family soon. "They might be dead or something else happened. I'm very worried."

At the Myanmar Baptist Church in Elmhurst, Queens, the pastor, U Myo Maw, said he reached his 29-year-old daughter by cell phone in Yangon.

"She said it's really bad," Maw said. "All the trees are torn down. Even though she's right in the middle of the city, she says it's like being in a jungle."

Maw wants to organize a relief effort, but he's not sure if Myanmar's military junta will allow it.

"Our country is very closed," he said. "Right now, all we can do is pray."

There are several thousand Burmese expats in New York, spread across Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. Many are Karen, an ethnic group that has been fighting for autonomy for several decades.