Cyclone Nargis vs Hurricane Katrina

Now more on Cyclone Nargis that slammed into Myanmar's coast.

Check out this picture...

Here's a satellite image of Cyclone Nargis taken as it approaches the coast on Thursday, May 1. At this point, it was a weak Category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds at 115 mph. The storm's damage covers about 11,600 square miles of land. What's remarkable is that even though that's only 5% of the country, nearly 57 million people live there.

But in an attempt to further understand the destruction that took place, let's compare Nargis to a historic Atlantic hurricane. Hurricane Katrina is one of the most devastating natural disasters in U-S history. It was the third strongest hurricane to make landfall in the U-S. You may be surprised to learn the similarities between Cyclone Nargis and Hurricane Katrina.

* They both hit low lying areas, prone to flooding.

* Both were Category 3 storms on the Saffir Simpson scale, packing 120 mph winds.

* Imagine a wall of water 24-28 feet high...that's the highest storm surge of Katrina.
Nargis had a 12 foot storm surge.

* Both dropped tremendous amounts of rain.
Slidell, Louisiana picked up the most, 15" with Katrina.
Parts of Southern Myanmar picked up 23.6" of rain!

* Over 1800 people died directly or indirectly because of Katrina.
And 1.2 million were told to evacuate.
The death toll is still going up in Myanmar, but some think it will rise to 100,000.
That would make Cyclone Nargis the deadliest cyclone to hit Asia in 17 years, when 143,000 people died from a cyclone that struck Bangladesh.

* Katrina's price tag reached $81 billion, making the costliest natural disaster ever!
There is no price tag for the devastation in Myanmar.

Unfortunately, the cyclone season in the North Indian Ocean just started. It runs from April through December. But despite the long season, the region on average has just over 5 named storms per year with 2 becoming full tropical cyclones.