Wrecked Myanmar leaves India aid pilot speechless

By Bappa Majumdar

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Miles of trees stripped of their leaves, heaps of rubble, twisted electricity poles and swarms of hungry people -- the first sights to greet Indian pilot Prashant Karde as he flew in aid for storm-wrecked Myanmar this week.

The scale of human misery was beyond Karde's comprehension, even as an Indian air force pilot who has participated in many flood relief operations before.

"It was very, very sad to see people with almost no clothes battling it out to survive," said Karde, recollecting his sortie to Yangon over miles of swamps which once were bustling villages and paddy fields.

Wing Commander Karde is among the few Indian air force pilots engaged in flying aid to Myanmar, bringing tonnes of medicines, tents and sheets on his IL-76 cargo plane. But the devastation he witnessed left him emotionally drained.

"I had heard Yangon was a very pretty city with lots of trees and rows of houses, but what I saw from above was complete devastation and ruin," Karde told Reuters on Friday.

Rows of houses were completely razed several kilometres in and around Yangon, Myanmar's main city. Bodies and animal carcasses were floating in the water, Karde said.

The 39-year-old pilot took the freighter down for a closer look, only to see people with very little clothing waving at the aircraft.

"Everything from uprooted trees, wooden planks and clothes were strewn all over the place," he said. "Miles and miles were covered with water and it seemed a devastating flood had hit the country."