New Delhi – Haing Gyi island, the first place in Burma struck by Cyclone Nargis, was described as a ghost town by those who visited immediately after the storm.

The first visitors arrived after midnight on May 4 by boat and found an empty village with no electricity, destroyed buildings and ships 500 yards from the river.

"It was like a graveyard," one of the witnesses said, according to a man on the boat.

The man, interviewed Monday by telephone in Rangoon , provided the first account to come out yet from the remote island.

Haing Gyi is at the mouth of a branch of the Irrawaddy River in the extreme southwest of the delta. The storm first struck about midnight Friday, according to survivors.

At first, residents weren't scared because they are used to storms that bring wind speeds between 40 and 80 miles an hour. But this storm was different.

"The wind was very strong. People were crawling" because they couldn't stand up, said the man.

Two hours later, the storm surge came, with floods ranging from 3 feet to 3 meters. "After the water came in, they couldn't crawl," the man said.

Some of the elderly and babies were washed away, while others tried to swim to safety, witnesses told the man. Villagers ran up a small hill on the island to escape the water.

The man estimated that 25 percent, or more than 300, of the island's population perished. But there were no bodies – they all washed away.

The military delivered aid, according to the man, including four milk cans of rice for each family and one longyi and one shirt for each family. But no private donations or aid groups had arrived.

About 80 percent of the fishing boats were destroyed, according to one boat owner
and one fish merchant.

Many of the big trees, some of them a century old, fell down. Wells were contaminated with salty water.

"An 80-year-old woman said it was the worst storm she had ever seen," the man said.

About 90 percent of the villagers depend on the fishing industry. "There's no more fishing boats," the man said. "They don't know what to do."

"They need more help," he added.