The prospect of a meager rice crop threatens to add to Myanmar's travails from May's cyclone that left tens of thousands dead. Much of the country's rice fields are in the now-swamped Irrawaddy delta.

When Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar, also known as Burma, on May 2 and 3, a 12-foot wall of saltwater and heavy rains soaked the low-lying delta region, which produces about a third of the country's rice, and wiped out many other rice fields and food stores.

Cyclone Nargis flattened villages, knocked out electricity and immersed low-lying regions. An aid worker in Myanmar describes the damage to the country and residents' most pressing needs in this audio slide show.

Protests -- touched off by Buddhist monks -- in Myanmar in the fall of 2007 drew renewed international interest in the country's military regime and the rights of its citizens. View the video of past NewsHour reports about the events.

Track the pathway and impacts of Cyclone Nargis as it careened into Myanmar and took its deadly toll on the residents of the Southeast Asian nation in this Google map.
You can view more map resources on ReliefWeb.