Myanmar blocked the cyclone death toll report, so I drove 4 hours to verify it myself

Last month the news from Yangon said 23 people died in the cyclone. Then that number vanished from every local site, replaced with a vague 'minor flooding.' I have family near Pathein, so I loaded up the car and drove the coastal road. I counted 11 collapsed bridges and talked to a teacher who lost 3 students. The real number is closer to 90, maybe more. I spent a week compiling photos and witness statements, and now I dont even know who to send them to. The international outlets picked up a version of it but left out the village names. Has anyone else had to physically go somewhere just to get a story that local media refuses to print?

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tara70023d ago

Drove four hours myself last spring to check on a story about crop damage that got buried in the local paper here. Turned out the real issue was the county was trying to hide that their irrigation system had been broken for weeks, not the frost they blamed it on. Talked to three farmers who all said the same thing, and one showed me the cracked pipes with his own photos. The weird part is when I finally got the story to a bigger outlet, they only wanted the part about the money lost, not the families who had to sell their land. Now I just keep the evidence in a folder on my laptop and nobody asks about it... feels like all that effort just disappears.