Ghosts of the cyclone haunt survivors, soldiers

YANGON — Maung Myint was asleep on the floor of a monastery when he heard his wife call his name.

He had spent two days searching for her near Kun Chan Kone town, in the heart of the cyclone-hit Irrawaddy Delta, after the deadly tidal surge swept through on May 2-3. He woke up sweaty, in the middle of the night, and saw a blur at the gate.

"Ma Tin Mya ... Ma Tin Mya," he called, repeating her name. "I'm here. I've been looking for you the whole day. Come here, come here."

But the apparition was gone. Maung Myint could only hear dogs barking.

Yet what happened was clear enough to Maung Myint: The spirit of his wife had returned to deliver the news that she was dead.

"Had my wife not visited me that night," he recalled, "I'd have looked for her everywhere until now, expecting she'd be still alive somewhere."

Two weeks after Cyclone Nargis pummeled Myanmar, ghost stories are playing out across the Irrawaddy Delta, where at least 100,000 people are believed dead, according to the United Nations and various international agencies.

Sometimes the ghosts carry a message or a warning. Often it is just to let their loved ones know that they are gone for good.

Similar ghost stories surfaced after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, as most Buddhists in Southeast Asia believe strongly in ghosts. They say the spirits of those who died accidentally have trouble moving on to the next life, and can get stuck temporarily in this world.

At night in the rice fields near Laputta town, villagers claim they hear voices calling,

"Hey, help us. ... Hey, help us." But when villagers search the fields with their flashlights, no one can be found.

"We believe it must be the ghosts of those who died, because they died unnaturally in the cyclone," said a villager.

A few days after the deadly storm, a 30-year-old woman said she was looking in the direction from which her husband normally came home. He had been out fishing when the storm struck and was a good swimmer. She hoped he still might be alive.

Between two coconut trees, she saw a blurry image wave its hands before disappearing without saying a word.

"The hair on my arms stood up at once. That's my husband," the woman said, wiping tears. "I could only go to a monk to save his soul so his next life will be a good one."

Such blessings are a routine part of helping the dead move on. In southern Thailand, where more than 8,000 people were declared dead or missing after the tsunami, special ceremonies were held on the beaches to appease the spirits.

A volunteer physician in Yangon who is helping cyclone survivors said stress might be a contributing factor to all of the ghost sightings.

"I think the survivors of the cyclone have been mentally traumatized and they tend to lose control and see things and images and hear sounds," said the doctor, who asked not to be named. "It might seem normal in the daylight, but when night falls, people tend to hear the voices of their loved ones and see them. They might think it is spirits or ghosts."

But it is not only survivors who are haunted. Military men are also visited by ghosts, according to some of the stories now being told.

One of the soldiers, stationed in Kun Chan Kone, had a dream about a woman who slapped him. The woman, so the story goes, complained that her body had been taken away before relatives had a chance to verify that she was dead.

The ghost also complained that the soldier had taken her body away unclothed — in full view of the public. Slap, slap.

Another story goes like this: In the town of Phyapon, a member of an officially sponsored civic group that supports the ruling military junta headed home drunk at 11 p.m. He felt something cool pass him. When he turned around, he saw a dark image. Frightened, the man tried to run. But the image appeared before him again, and asked him to sell the ring he had taken from a corpse and donate the money to a pagoda.

"He took a ring off a woman in her twenties, while he was counting bodies together with soldiers in the countryside," one of the man's relatives confirmed.

It's not just in the worst-hit areas of the delta where ghost stories are being told. They can even be found near Yangon.

A motorbike taxi driver said he was returning to Dala, on the other side of the Yangon River from the commercial capital, after sending a passenger to Bogalay, the worst hit area in the delta. He said he was stopped by a pretty girl near Day Da Ye town. The girl told him to take her to Dala, since she had lost her home in the storm.

The taxi driver told her to hop on. He was pleased to help a pretty girl.

But when he entered Dala, the headlight of his motorbike turned off. He smelled something bad, and felt a chill down his back. When he turned around, the girl was no longer there.

Min Khet Maung is the pen name of a Burmese journalist based in Yangon. Additional reporting was contributed by Maung Dee, a Burmese journalist based in New Delhi, and by former Seattle Times reporter Jeff Hodson.