From a Daily Mail article, the side by side images show the Irrawaddy delta immediately before and after the passage of cyclone Nargis. Look closely. The red box marks Rangoon. Notice the brown areas south and southwest of the capitol in the “before” shot. These are probably expanses of rice paddy awaiting the seasonal rains. Now they are flooded blue with salt water that has not returned to the sea....Because the storm moved from west to east, the delta was hit with onshore wind immediately in advance of the eye. It was a perfect worst-case scenario, as though Katrina had come directly ashore on the Mississippi Delta and driven straight over New Orleans. That too could have killed 60,000. But looking at the scale of the floods, and considering the density of the Burmese population, I wonder whether the casualty estimate might still be low.