Chris Northey was among the first international aid workers permitted by Myanmar's ruling junta to enter the Irrawaddy Delta, pummeled by Cyclone Nargis a month ago.

Northey, 39, is the emergency team leader in Myanmar for CARE International, whose U.S. office is headquartered in Atlanta. She made the treacherous journey from the capital Yangon to isolated islands on the Irrawaddy River to distribute critical food and aid to 120,000 people left hungry and homeless by the cyclone.

The United Nations says Nargis killed 100,000 people and severely affected 2.5 million people.

Though Myanmar is beginning to disappear from television screens, Northey says much of the delta is still under water, a murky sea of flooded fields, felled trees and swollen rivers, pungent with the smell of death.

Nothing is dry anywhere. And it is raining, like clockwork, every evening.

Roofs peeled off houses like a half-opened can. Fishing boats are plunked on banks as though King Kong picked them up and tossed them from the river. Northey counted 26 boats. Then she stopped counting, stopped calculating nature's fury.

Northey, who has worked for a decade on emergency situations in Africa and elsewhere in Asia, says the scope of Myanmar's disaster is staggering. She says after weeks of no access, foreign aid workers are finally starting to make some progress.

She visited suffering villages with locals — CARE has been working in Myanmar for 14 years and employs 550 national staff.

Northey spoke by phone with the AJC this week. Here, then, are a few thoughts from one woman in the midst of humanity in crisis:

• The logistics: Northey says CARE workers unload aid coming in on flights to Yangon. Then, it's put on a truck, then onto long, narrow wooden boats traditional to the Irrawaddy. Sometimes, the aid is carried on motorcycles. It can take hours, even days to reach isolated communities. Some of these villages don't even appear on maps.

• The shock: The scale of destruction is shocking, Northey says. Images are indelibly etched her mind. Among them is an ornate, gold-leaf statue of Buddha that she stumbled across. It was stunning — and still standing 15 feet tall among hundreds of leveled houses. People here refer to the devastating cyclone as just a storm. Northey figures it's their way of making a frightening situation more manageable.

• The awe: Northey says she feels privileged as a foreigner to serve among the people of Myanmar, without whom this crisis would be insurmountable. Cyclone survivors are helping other survivors.

"These are people who themselves have suffered," she says. "Yet, they are working ridiculous hours to help their friends, help their neighbors."

• The resilience: Some villagers approached CARE and said that all they needed was a bit of diesel to run the pump they borrowed to get the salinated water out of their drinking water wells.

"Quite often, that's all it takes," Northey says. "A little bit of extra help."

• The distress: "It's never easy to see people who are distressed and who have suffered so much," Northey says. "As human beings, if you are not moved in some way or you do not have some sort of empathy for that then perhaps you should not be in this sort of role. It is very challenging."