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Why the Cyclone in Myanmar Was So DeadlyMichael Casey in Bangkok, Thailand Associated PressMay 8, 2008 It was Asia's answer to Hurricane Katrina—though with a reported 100,000 killed, it was many times more deadly. Packing winds upward of 120 miles an hour (193 kilometers an hour), Cyclone Nargis became one of Asia's deadliest storms by hitting land at one of the lowest points in Myanmar (also called Burma) and setting off a storm surge that reached 25 miles (40 kilometers) inland. "When we saw the [storm] track, I said, 'Uh oh, this is not going to be good,'" said Mark...

With panic in his face, the fisherman beckoned me to lie down and hide at the prow of his longboat. The Burmese navy was patrolling its territorial waters and looking for interlopers as it sought to preserve the dictatorship's fiction that only 90 people died in last weekend's devastating tsunami. The splintered remains of a wooden bridge just ahead, on the large island of Palao Ton Ton, told a different story. The fisherman said he saw 50 people swept to their deaths from this bridge alone. The red-and-white woodwork lay smashed in pieces and a large gap yawned in the...