H. a long term employee for World Concern, lives with his wife, toddler son, grandparents and two other relatives in a 2-story house made of wood with a metal roof. "The wind was blowing very heavily. A coconut tree fell right next to the house. The metal sheeting on the roof was flapping then it opened up like a tin can and the water was pouring in. Water was also coming in on the ground floor and everything was floating. The nearby stream had come up 4 feet to reach the house. In my lounge room the water came up to my chest! We all went into the kitchen as it only had 6 inches of water. At 2 am my neighbor's house collapsed and was completely destroyed. They all managed to get out but I don't know where they went to. We were very frightened that ours would also fall down so we stood in the doorway in case. When the water went down everything was very muddy from the stream water. We have no water as our water tank was on the ground and it was full of the dirty stream water."

S. works at the World Concern Office in Yangon. He had not been able to go home as his relief was not able to come in to replace him because of the storm. He went out to buy food but all the shops had closed. He was worried about his family but he was unable to contact them. When the cyclone hit he could see that the huge fig tree next door would fall onto the office so he took shelter in a car parked around the other side of the building. It was a terrible night and he was very afraid. He was able to contact his family in the morning.

His relief did not come in all weekend as his own house had been destroyed so S. stayed at the office and worked tirelessly on the clean up from the fallen tree. It took many hours of removing branches to be able to access the office doors, reach the generator and make the yard safe.

S. did not get back to his own house until Monday. He found that his roof had gone and his house was leaning over so he had to make a support to hold it up and put plastic on the roof for his family. He has a wife and 2 teenage daughters.

A. and her husband both work at the World Concern Office. They have 2 small children. A. was warned about the storm by the office staff and, as her house is near the Yangon River and is in poor condition, she left work at 1.30 pm but arrived home at 4 pm because of the flooding and traffic jams.

The strong wind and heavy rain started at about 10:00 pm. Their house started shaking but they are used to that in heavy rain. The weather became worse and worse and, at 4:00 am Saturday, the wind took off their roof and the rain came in. She was distressed because she had borrowed money to build the house and now it was collapsing. They had no place to run and they were afraid to go out from their house. They went to the kitchen where some roof remained but they still got wet. She put a blanket and a plastic bag over her children. The wind blew through their house with great force and dislocated everything. A cupboard nearly fell down on A. and her children but luckily her husband stopped it.

The children were wet and cold and shivering so they decided to go to the neighbor's house at 6:00 am. It was difficult to get there because the storm was still raging and their gourd tree had fallen and was blocking the way. They found other people had taken refuge when they arrived there. Shortly after they left, their home collapsed.

On Monday, she had to walk for half an hour to reach the phone shop to inform the World Concern office that she could not come. The rice bags in the shops had got wet. Unexpectedly, staff from the World Concern office came to her house with some food on Monday evening which lasted for some days.

Go to www.worldconcern.org for the latest relief effort information.