SAN DIEGO -- A country already torn apart by war has now been torn apart by the weather.

Cyclone `Nargis’ has left much of Myanmar without power, shelter or drinking water.

“The first thing that I thought was `Oh, no, please. Not one more thing,’” said filmmaker Dustin Kinney.

A San Diegan, Kinney has a special connection to Myanmar.

In 2006, he and some friends filmed a documentary on what he and others call `ethnic cleansing’ by the military government.

“All kinds of killing, rape torture, slavery… to just annihilate people groups,” Kinney said.

He made friends there. He's been able to contact only two of them since the cyclone hit.

“They're telling me `it’s just a disaster.’ It’s the worst thing that they’ve ever seen. And, coming from people who have seen devastation and war, that’s pretty scary,” Kinney said.

There has already been criticism in Myanmar that the government has been slow to help its people after the cyclone.

Kinney worries that when foreign aid arrives, it may not be used well.

“Any aid that’s going to be going inside Burma needs to be very controlled by trusted resources and going directly to the people. Otherwise, we’re just looking at another situation of a way for a corrupt government to make more money,” Kinney said.

For now, he will keep trying to contact his friends, hoping for the best.

“I'm really worried that there are some people that I can’t get a hold of. I'm scared,” Kinney said.