2 May 2008 (from AFP) - A severe cyclone was expected to hit Myanmar's main city Yangon later today after the storm missed neighbouring Bangladesh, meteorologists said.

Cyclone Nargis approaching the west coasts of Myanmar - MERIS image in Reduced Resolution mode.

This image shows the same area as above, but in Full Resolution mode, presented a magnified view of the Cyclone.

On 02 May 2008, Tropical Cyclone Nargis swept over Myanmar (Burma) and left behind a path of destruction. Wind speeds of more than 200 km/h and a storm surge of up to 3 metres in height destroyed more than 90 percent of housing and large parts of infrastructure in some regions. It is believed that more then 100,000 people could have died and several hundreds of thousands have lost their homes in the disaster.

This multi-temporal image was created by merging two images from the ASAR instrument, to analyse the changes to the area before and after Cyclone Nargis. Changes not due to the disaster may be present (part of the red areas may be linked to seasonal effects for instance). Areas highlighted in blue indicate negative changes (typical of flooding features) and grey or dark tones indicate open water (before and after).

Hydrological situation on 15 May 2008, analysed with Envisat Wide Swath Medium Resolution images, comparing ten dry seasons in 2007-2008.

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