Death toll from Myanmar cyclone nearly doubles

5 minutes ago

YANGON, Myanmar - The official death toll nearly doubled to 78,000 from Myanmar‘s killer cyclone Friday as heavy rains lashed much of the area stricken two weeks ago, further hampering relief efforts.

Myanmar state television said the official death count from the May 3 cyclone was 77,738, with 55,917 others missing.

The release of the figures led to dire warnings from the U.N. and renewed calls for the military regime to allow international aid workers access to devastated areas.

U.N. Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert criticized the junta for refusing to allow a French navy ship to deliver 1,500 tons of food, drugs and medication to the Irrawaddy delta using small boats.

Myanmar‘s ruling junta, meanwhile, put up a security cordon around Yangon to restrict travel to the Irrawaddy delta, where scenes of devastation were rife.

John Holmes, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, was to go to Myanmar on Sunday in an attempt to persuade the junta to admit more U.N. relief workers and to greatly increase aid efforts, said Amanda Pitt, a U.N. spokeswoman in Bangkok, Thailand.

The junta maintains it has the situation under control. But after two weeks, the U.N. remains largely in the dark about the situation on the ground.

The Red Cross has put the death toll as high as 128,000 and the most recent official figures on dead and missing have the U.N. saying the number could easily reach 130,000.

The U.N. estimates some 1.5 million to 2.5 million survivors are in desperate need of food, water, shelter and medical care.

Aid groups have reached only 270,000 people so far, and the situation for survivors will likely get more difficult as time passes without proper help.

Lack of clean water will be deadly in Irrawaddy, Thomas Gurtner, the head of operations for the international Red Cross, told The Associated Press in Geneva.

"To be able to provide clean water to hundreds of thousands of people stranded in the delta requires a major operation, which we have neither the material, the logistical nor the staff capacity to do," he said.

Officials also worry about disease outbreaks.

The U.S. military flew four more flights of emergency supplies into Yangon on Friday, raising its total to 17 since Monday. Two of the flights carried aid provided by the Thai government. India was also readying flights.

The United Nations says the regime has issued only 40 visas to its staffers and another 46 to nongovernment agencies and has confined the personnel to the immediate Yangon area.

Marshall, the U.N. official, said the military has set up checkpoints on the two main roads to the delta to keep foreigners out of the disaster zone. Even local staff have to negotiate with the military to gain access to the camps.

UNICEF said Friday the agency‘s fourth flight into Myanmar, scheduled for Saturday, would deliver several tons of food for malnourished children. Radio broadcasts are trying to help lost children find their families, it said.

In the meantime, ordinary people are stepping in, with shopkeepers handing out rice gruel and medical students caring for the sick.

But the government was reportedly interfering with those efforts as well.

In an interview with the Democratic Voice of Burma, the abbot of Mandalay‘s Maha Gandaryon monastery said monks were stockpiling relief supplies and getting trucks to take in aid.

"We are still in the preparation stages," he told the radio, which is critical of the junta. "We have contacted some private organizations and services, and found out that they were told by the authorities not to work with us in aid distribution. They said we can‘t go with them."



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