Burma: One Year After Cyclone Nargis

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May 2, 2008. The village of Kyon Da Min a week after Cyclone Nargis hit Burma. The storm killed 1,000 people in the area, out of a population of 5,000. In this village the damage was so severe, and the death toll so high, that the villagers could not bury the dead. Instead, they pushed them back into the water. In some villages, they buried bodies in the first few days, but soon stopped as decay set in. © 2008 Christian Holst/Reportage by Getty Images 45570
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April 19, 2009. A 41-year-old woman holds her one-year-old daughter, Nargis. Nargis was born on the morning the cyclone struck and named for the powerful storm. © 2009 Christian Holst/Reportage by Getty Images 45570
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April 18, 2009. This 13-year-old girl lost her aunt to the cyclone, but her mother, father and younger sibling survived by taking shelter in a village monastery. The girl says she had to swim through the remains of her village to get there. © 2009 Christian Holst/Reportage by Getty Images 45570
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April 18, 2009. This 56-year-old rice farmer lost two daughters and a grandchild to Cyclone Nargis. He spent days after the storm sailing on the Pyapon River and its tributaries searching for the bodies of his three loved ones. He never found them. He borrowed money to rebuild his house and replant his farm. But his first attempts at planting rice were unsuccessful because the saltwater had ruined his fields. He is now heavily in debt and a moneylender has reported him to the police. © 2009 Christian Holst/Reportage by Getty Images 45570
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April 19, 2009. A family poses for a portrait in the same spot where they took refuge under a fallen palm tree in the days after Cyclone Nargis. © 2009 Christian Holst/Reportage by Getty Images 45570
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April 19, 2009. A man fetches water from a pond in the Irrawaddy Delta. Access to fresh water remains a problem in the region. © 2009 Christian Holst/Reportage by Getty Images 45570
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April 19, 2009. A couple and their 13-month-old son stand outside their home in the Irrawaddy Delta. Before Cyclone Nargis they lived in a neighbor’s compound. With no land of their own, they have now built a small hut on the edge of a paddy field. But they do not know if the landowner will let them stay. The sides of the hut are made of clothing they found around the village in the days and weeks after the cyclone. © 2009 Christian Holst/Reportage by Getty Images 45570
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April 19, 2009. A poster provides instructions on how villagers can rebuild their homes. But many villagers do not have the materials they need to build sound structures that could survive another storm. © 2009 Christian Holst/Reportage by Getty Images 45570
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April 19, 2009. A man empties a boat of leaves of the nipa palm harvested on the shores of the river. The leaves will be used for thatched roofs. © 2009 Christian Holst/Reportage by Getty Images 45570
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April 18, 2009. A man repairs his thatched roof before another monsoon season sets in. There is a risk that a storm could undo the work villagers have done to rebuild. © 2009 Christian Holst/Reportage by Getty Images 45570
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April 19, 2009. A nine-year-old girl carries thatched palm leaves to be used for roofing. She is helping her aunt re-roof her house. © 2009 Christian Holst/Reportage by Getty Images 45570
Cyclone Nargis struck Burma on the night of May 2, 2008. An estimated 140,000 people died in the storm. Photographer Christian Holst was in the Irrawaddy Delta in the days and weeks after the cyclone. There, he met and photographed the survivors of the storm. He recently returned to the same three villages to find out how people had faired in the year after the disaster. “It was a great personal privilege being able to meet the same people and hear how the past year has treated them,” Holst says.
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