As many as 100,000 people may have died in the cyclone that hit Myanmar last week. Hungry crowds stormed the few shops that were open on Wednesday causing fights to break out. The storm, which raged out of the Bay of Bengal, reached Myanmar as a category 4 cyclone. Many of the dead are still floating around in water so it is hard to determine just how many have died. So far the nation's ruling military has not allowed American help to come into the county. Most of the victims were swept away by a wall of water from the cyclone that smashed into coastal towns and villages in the rice-growing delta southwest of the biggest city of Yangon.

Vendors sold bottled water at about 50 cents a liter, more than double the normal price. A standard 73-pound bag of rice had doubled in price to about $40 — an astronomical price in a country where many scrape by on $2 a day. Buddhist monks and Catholic nuns wielding knives and axes joined Yangon residents Tuesday in clearing roads of ancient, fallen trees that were once the city's pride. Soldiers were out on the streets in large numbers for the first time since the cyclone hit.