New Delhi – Despite approaching monsoon, farmers in Laputta Township in Burma's richest rice producing division, are jobless as they cannot resume cultivation after the killer Cyclone swept across their area on May 2 and3.

"This is the time we use to go to our fields to work," said a 50 year old farmer from Laputta Township. "We would sow paddy seed in the fields and it would have been our busiest time in the year."

"But we are now jobless," the farmer said

Most of the paddy fields in Laputta Township were destroyed and were flattened by the cyclone. And most of the cattle were killed where tens of thousands of people lived in the township.

Though the exact number of deaths in Laputta town, which is one of the worst hit, remains unknown, it is believed that as many as 73,000 people were killed by the cyclone.

"Of the 28 buffaloes that I owned, only four are left, and I lost 24 buffaloes," a farmer whose family members survived the cyclone said.

But many farmers are becoming depressed and nobody can think of starting cultivation said the farmer, "Because we do not own anything now."

Cyclone Nargis uprooted most of the big trees, mangroves and palm trees and the paddy fields remain covered with sea water.

Mr. G. Padmanabham, an Emergency Analyst in the New Delhi based UNDP - Disaster Management section said the situation in the aftermath of the cyclone could largely affect the fields and have along term impact on cultivation.

"Lands cannot become fertile again for cultivation and it could affect productivity in that region because of high salt being condenses in the land," Padmanabham said.

A health worker from Laputta Township also said "All the ponds in the villages [affected by the cyclone] were filled with salt water and dead bodies are found in them."

Beside the lands being polluted, clean drinking water for the villagers has become a major problem, the aid worker said.

The UNDP-officer said technicians and experts are urgently needed to treat the land and water. It is important to remove contaminated water in the fields by spraying chemicals and to pump out salt water from the wells, lakes and ponds, before it can totally damage the region.

Another way of removing the condensed salt and the contaminated water will be through rain water.  But it is entirely dependent on the rain fall pattern, he added.

Health workers said, in recent days, there has been heavy rain fall in Laputta Township and it was even more problematic for survivors to get into shelters. But they expressed their doubts whether the temporary rain could wash away the contaminated water and the condensed salt from the fields.

While most survivors in the rural areas said aid has been slow in coming, a few farmers in Laputta township complained of not getting enough relief from the government. They also complained that they have not been supported with cultivation equipment rather than water-pumps.

"I prefer to get cultivation equipment than a water-pump, because they are less useful to farmers," said the farmer. He said the money he need to start cultivation was at about kyat 3,000,000 (USD $2608).

Most of the villagers from Laputta Township are traditionally farmers and earn their living from cultivation.

"I have no other job," said the farmer, adding that it is not easy to look for other jobs in big towns. "I need cultivation equipment."