YANGON (Reuters) - A tropical cyclone packing winds of 120 mph (190 km/h) slammed into Yangon on Saturday, ripping off roofs, felling trees and power lines and raising fears of major casualties in military-ruled Myanmar's main city.
The Internet, land, mobile and satellite phone connections were down and the authorities were forced to close the one airport serving the sprawling city of 5 million people.
A U.N. official in neighbouring Thailand said U.N. staff had managed to contact a colleague in the former Burmese capital in the afternoon as the eye of the storm passed overhead.
"A lot of roofs from well-constructed buildings have been blown off. That would lead you to believe that less well-constructed buildings will have taken a really big whack," Tony Craig, regional emergency coordinator for the World Food Programme (WFP), told Reuters in Bangkok.
The Thailand-based Federation of Trade Unions, Burma said the ruling military junta had declared states of emergency in five affected provinces, most of them in the low-lying floodplains of the Irrawaddy delta.
It was impossible to contact anybody inside Myanmar to confirm the report. A spokesman for Britain's Department for International Development (DFID), which has an office with 10 staff, said the ministry had not been able to establish the extent of damage because of poor communications.
The spokesman said its 10 staff, both British and locals were safe.
The electricity supply in Yangon -- hit-and-miss at the best of times in one of Asia's poorest countries -- failed after Cyclone Nargis started to lash the former capital on Friday evening.
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