Nearly every tree was down, and Thura Aung could see far into the distance.
“At one spot I saw a group of people running around almost naked trying to capture a pig. I wondered: why are they doing this? Are they really going to eat this pig? They seemed crazed. They called to me. I told them I was going to Amakan but I didn’t want to take them on board. They might have lost their minds.” At the next village, he saw no living people, only bodies and a single mango tree. He stopped the boat and wept for the
first time. Another little boat appeared, carrying people who said they had been swept away for miles. It wasn’t impossible, he thought, that some
people from Amakan had survived.
From a personal account of the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in the Hidden History of Burma.