"All my 28 family members have died. I am the only survivor," said Thein Myint, 68, whose flimsy house was torn apart May 3 when cyclone Nargis sent powerful waves surging in from the sea.

"We huddled together, but the big trees carried by the waves knocked down two of my children and my wife," said Htay Maung, 70, recounting a common story at a large Buddhist monastery where many others took shelter from the almost 200-kilometre-an-hour winds.

Money "is useless to me now, without my family," he said as he ate rice mixed with boiled banana shoots. "They were washed away."