abc.net.auM - By South East Asia correspondent Karen Percy

Burma's state media is reporting that Saturday's constitutional referendum vote will go ahead despite the devastation caused at the weekend by Cyclone Nargis.

The death toll so far is about 350.

As many as 7 million people could have been affected by Cyclone Nargis which hit Burma on Friday night, tearing through the fertile Irrawaddy Delta region and the capital, Rangoon.

Tens of thousands of people have lost their homes.

The military junta says the vote for a new constitution will proceed on Saturday, despite the massive clean-up and relief effort that will be needed over the coming days.

It is the country's first national vote in 18 years.

But the constitution has been criticised for giving the military excessive power, despite promises of a civilian-led government.

The military has been pushing an aggressive "yes" campaign as part of its drawn-out road map to democracy.

New York Times, By Seth Mydans, May 6

Hundreds of thousands of people were reported to be homeless Monday and food and water were running short in parts of Myanmar in the wake of the devastating cyclone that smashed urban buildings and obliterated villages two days earlier.

With roads blocked and power and telephone lines down, the authorities were still assessing the damage and foreign aid groups were mobilizing for a disaster the full extent of which was not yet known.

The government reported that 351 people had been killed, but foreign aid officials said that this number was sure to rise as reports came in from remote areas.

“What is clear is that we are dealing with a major emergency situation and the priority needs now are shelter and clean drinking water,” said Richard Horsey, a spokesman for the United Nations disaster response office in Bangkok.

New York Times, By Seth Mydans, May 6

The death toll from the devastating cyclone in Myanmar over the weekend escalated to nearly 4,000 people on Monday, with thousands of others still missing and at least one entire village wiped out, state television and radio reported Monday.

If the reports are accurate, the death toll would be the biggest from a natural disaster in Asia since the tsunami of December 2004, which devastated parts of Indonesia, Thailand and other parts of south Asia.

The death toll was a dramatic increase from the government’s initial estimate of 351 people killed from the disaster. Hundreds of thousands of people were reported homeless and food and water were reported to be running short.

“The confirmed number is 3,934 dead, 41 injured and 2,879 missing within the Yangon and Irrawaddy divisions,” the evening news report said, according to Reuters.

CNN, May 5

YANGON, Myanmar -- The death toll from the Myanmar cyclone is more than 10,000 people, Myanmar's Foreign Ministry said Monday.

Survivors were facing their third night without electricity in the aftermath of the historic cyclone that also clogged roads with thousands of downed trees.

Diplomats were summoned to a government briefing Monday as the reclusive southeast Asian country's ruling military junta issued a rare appeal for international assistance in the face of an escalating humanitarian crisis.

A state of emergency was declared across much of the country following the 10-hour storm that left swathes of destruction in its wake.

The staggering death toll would make the cyclone the deadliest natural disaster to hit Myanmar in recent history, according to figures compiled by a United Nations-funded disaster database.

BBC nternational agencies are pushing to gain access for a massive aid operation in Burma, where the toll from Saturday's cyclone continues to rise.

State media say 10,000 people died in one town alone, and put the number of dead at 15,000.

Hundreds of thousands of people are said to be without clean water and shelter, with some areas still cut-off.

The Times Of London, By Kenneth Denby, May 6

Rangoon - Foreign aid workers in Burma have concluded that as many as 50,000 people died in Saturday’s cyclone, and two to three million are homeless, in a disaster whose scale invites comparison with the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

The official death count after Cyclone Nargis is 15,000, and the Thai Foreign Minister says he has been told that 30,000 people are missing. But due to the incompleteness of the information from the stricken Irrawaddy delta, UN and charity workers in the city of Rangoon privately believe that the number will eventually be several times higher.

Andrew Kirkwood, country director of the British charity Save The Children told The Times: “I’d characterise it as unprecedented in the history of Myanmar and on an order of magnitude with the effect of the tsunami on individual countries. It might well be more dead than the tsunami caused in Sri Lanka.”

The death toll in Sri Lanka on Boxing Day 2004 was 31,000, second only to the 131,000 who died on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Eleven countries were affected.

[...]

The generals have, however, turned down an offer from the US State Department of $250,000 (£125,000) in help and a disaster assistance team, suggesting that it remains selective about whom it accepts. The refusal prompted a sharp rebuke from Laura Bush, the US first lady, who urged the generals not to hinder the relief effort. "The United States stands prepared to provide an assistance team and much-needed supplies to Burma, as soon as the Burmese Government accepts our offer," she said.

BBC, May 6

Aid agencies are beginning preliminary assessments of the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis when it struck southern Burma on Saturday.

It is already being seen as the worst natural disaster in East Asia since the tsunami of 2004.

Getting the right supplies to the worst hit areas will be key to preventing further loss of life. BBC News looks at the main priorities for aid workers in the coming days.

The United Nations is facing 'enormous difficulties' making an assessment of the disaster wrought by Cyclone Nargis on central Myanmar, which is likely to hamper any emergency aid programme in the devastated countryside.

'We are facing enormous difficulties right now in getting out there and unless there is an assessment ... the first thing you need is an assessment and then you can gauge your response on that,' said Aye Win, spokesman for the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in Yangon.

Various UN agencies and international aid agencies gathered in Bangkok Tuesday morning to prepare emergency aid to Myanmar, where the cyclone claimed more than 15,000 lives and has left hundreds of thousands homeless, but the meeting was stalled by the lack of a proper assessment of the situation, sources said.

monsters and critics

06 May 2008 14:31:59 GMT
Source: Reuters
* 22,464 killed, 41,000 missing * Referendum postponed in some storm-hit areas * First foreign aid shipment arrives * Bush urges junta to accept U.S. aid offer (Adds Thai, Indian aid flights, paras 7, 22, 23)

By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON, May 6 (Reuters) - Myanmar's military government raised its death toll from Cyclone Nargis on Tuesday to nearly 22,500 with a further 41,000 missing, nearly all of them from a massive storm surge that swept into the Irrawaddy delta.

Of the dead, only 671 were in the former capital, Yangon, and its outlying districts, state radio said, confirming Nargis as the most devastating cyclone to hit Asia since 1991, when 143,000 people died in Bangladesh.

"More deaths were caused by the tidal wave than the storm itself," Minister for Relief and Resettlement Maung Maung Swe told a news conference in the rubble-strewn city of five million, where food and water supplies are running low.

"The wave was up to 12 feet (3.5 metres) high and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages," he said, giving the first detailed description of the weekend cyclone. "They did not have anywhere to flee."

Information Minister Kyaw Hsan said the military were "doing their best", but analysts said there could be fallout for the former Burma's rulers, who pride themselves on their ability to cope with any challenge.

"The myth they have projected about being well-prepared has been totally blown away," said analyst Aung Naing Oo, who fled to Thailand after a brutally crushed 1988 uprising. "This could have a tremendous political impact in the long term."

The first batch of more than $10 million worth of foreign aid arrived on Tuesday, but a lack of specialised equipment slowed distribution.

U.S. President George W. Bush urged the regime to accept U.S. aid workers who have so far have been kept out, and said the United States stood ready to "do a lot more" to help.

"The military junta must allow our disaster assessment teams into the country," Bush told reporters, adding he was prepared to make U.S. naval assets available for search and rescue.

Reflecting the scale of the disaster, the junta said it would postpone to May 24 a constitutional referendum in the worst-hit areas of Yangon and the sprawling delta.

However, state TV said the May 10 vote on the charter, part of the army's much-criticised "roadmap to democracy", would proceed as planned in the rest of the southeast Asian nation, which has been under army rule for the last 46 years.

Its political plans have been slammed by Western governments, especially after the army's bloody suppression of Buddhist-monk led protests last September.

SEVERAL HUNDRED THOUSAND HOMELESS

Earlier, Foreign Minister Nyan Win said on state television that 10,000 people had died just in Bogalay, a town 90 km (50 miles) southwest of Yangon.

However, the government lifted states of emergency in three of the five states declared official disaster zones and some parts of the worst-hit Yangon and Irrawaddy regions. Nearly half Myanmar's 53 million people live in the five hit states.

The Information Minister also said the government had sufficient stocks of rice despite damage to grain stored in the huge delta, known as the "rice bowl of Asia" 50 years ago when Burma was the world's largest exporter.

The total left homeless by the 190 km (120 miles) per hour winds and storm surge is in the several hundred thousands, United Nations aid officials say.

Even in delta villages that managed to withstand the worst of the winds, food and water is running low.

"There's not much food," one woman at a pineapple stall in Hlaing Tha Yar, an hour's drive west of Yangon, told Reuters. "The price of a cabbage is now 1,000 kyats instead of 250."

In Yangon itself, people queued up for bottled water and there was still no electricity four days after the cyclone hit.

Prices of food, fuel and construction materials have skyrocketed, and most shops have sold out of candles and batteries. An egg costs three times what it did on Friday.

"MASSIVE, TERRIBLE"

The disaster drew a rare acceptance of outside help from the diplomatically isolated generals, who spurned such approaches in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Thailand flew in nine tonnes of food and medicine, the first foreign aid shipment, but a Reuters cameraman on the plane said supplies were unloaded by hand as no forklift trucks were available -- a worrying sign of the army's lack of vital kit.

Two Indian transport planes are due to fly in early on Wednesday and more are on standby, New Delhi said.

State media have made much of the army's response, showing footage of soldiers manhandling tree trunks or top generals climbing into helicopters or greeting homeless storm victims in Buddhist temples.

Aid agency World Vision in Australia said it had been granted special visas to send in personnel to back up 600 staff in the impoverished Southeast Asian country.

"This is massive. It is not necessarily quite tsunami level, but in terms of impact of millions displaced, thousands dead, it is just terrible," World Vision Australia head Tim Costello said.

"Organisations like ours have been given permission, which is pretty unprecedented, to fly people in. This shows how grave it is in the Burmese government's mind," he said.

An aid official in Burma says the death toll from Cyclone Nargis may be 80,000 or more.

Kyi Minn is health adviser for World Vision in Burma and he says that on top of the 22,000 the military regime has admitted have died, there are another 60,000 missing - presumed dead.

ABC correspondent Peter Lloyd reports there are also indications that the massive aid effort is being hampered by a lack of organisation and infrastructure in Burma to distribute the urgently needed supplies.

The storm happened at the weekend, but the military junta's slowness to let international aid agencies in has meant that many devastated areas have still seen no help.

Agencies are still battling to get all the visas and permits they need to do their work in flooded and cyclone-ravaged towns and villages.

More details are emerging from Burma about the scale of death and destruction caused by cyclone Nargis.

Kyi Minn says water is in short supply and power to many communities is still cut.

"We don't have direct communication with them because there is no phone lines and transportation is very limited because of the roads are still blocked and some areas are flooded and you cannot go, so we have to rely on the information that's brought by the eye witnesses there," Mr Minn said.

"So they were saying that the areas there is quite serious. They found a lot of dead bodies there and the sanitation is quite bad over there."

The aid agency save the Children says millions of people have been left homeless in the worst affected region in southern Burma.

The Rangoon-based organisation says there are harrowing accounts emerging of villages where rotting bodies have begun decomposing, posing a serious health risk for survivors.

Aid workers who flew over the southern region said entire villages appear to have been washed away, and seen rice fields strewn with bodies

MORE

The Telegraph, By Sebastien Berger, Graham Jenkins & Stephen Adams, May 7

Thirty-six prisoners were shot dead at a notorious Burmese prison after Cyclone Nargis ripped through the country, it has been claimed.

Soldiers and riot police opened fire at Insein Prison in Rangoon, the capital of Burma, or Myanmar, after inmates there rioted, according to reports.

The facility, which houses many political prisoners who oppose the country’s military junta, has been described by former inmates as “the darkest hell-hole in Burma”.

The chilling report came after the Burmese authorities raised the estimate of the dead and missing to more than 60,000.

It is feared that the secretive regime’s paranoia has hampered the flow of aid which has now started flowing into the country.

Aid workers stunned to find survivors with 'visible scars, almost burns' as Myanmar toll climbs to 22,000 dead and 41,000 missing

The Globe and Mail, By Geoffrey York, May 7

BEIJING — The toll continued to rise Tuesday in the aftermath of a catastrophic cyclone in Myanmar, with 22,000 people dead and officials acknowledging that 41,000 more are missing. More than a million survivors are without food, water, electricity or telephones.

Relief workers who finally reached the survivors of Myanmar's cyclone Nargis Tuesday were stunned to find scars on their faces, evidence of the ferocity of the rain storm.

“They had visible scars, almost burns, on their faces from the driving force of the rain,” said Paul Risley, a spokesman for the United Nations World Food Program. “The rain had pelted them at such a velocity that it left marks on their faces. Our workers had never seen that before.”

UN assessment teams were struggling to reach the hardest-hit villages in the Irrawaddy delta, the main rice-producing region of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, where roads are almost impassable. When they did arrive, relief-agency helicopters encountered corpses scattered across the rice fields that bore the brunt of the storm.

Up to 60,000 people killed and one million left homeless by Burmese cyclone - but ruling junta obstructs global aid efforts

The Independent, By Andrew Buncombe, May 7

As the death toll from the Burmese cyclone rose yesterday, with up to 62,000 people now feared dead, witnesses spoke of the homelessness, hunger and disease now threatening the worst-affected areas.

The UN said more than one million people could be homeless and vast areas of the nation's rice-growing areas may have been destroyed. Unless emergency supplies can be delivered quickly, it is feared that more people will die.

"We need water, we need food!" a woman living in Thigangyun, in the north of Rangoon, wrote in a message to the BBC's Burmese service. Another witness from Tunte, across the river from Rangoon, said no aid was getting through. "I have not heard anything about help. This is the nearest town to Rangoon. It is just across Hlaing river [in Rangoon]. I have just returned from that area and I neither heard nor saw any rescue operation," the witness said.

The country's ruling junta admitted that at least 22,000 people had lost their lives and more than 40,000 were missing. About 10,000 people died in one coastal town alone, triggering fears that the final toll from Cyclone Nargis could rise significantly when workers reach some of the most isolated areas.

[...]

In an email to The Independent, an aid worker in Burma wrote: "It is not Yangon [Rangoon] that is worst hit, at least people are alive. Today a team called in and said they've arrived on the tip of the [Irrawaddy] delta; 40,000 dead in one village (Pyin Su La in Labutta). Corpses everywhere. Stinking. No food. No water. And the government won't allow NGOs to work in areas where they don't have official permission. Of the 40 NGOs working in Burma, only four have permission to work in the affected area."

07 May 2008 12:49:20 GMT
Source: Reuters

* More aid arrives from Asian countries

* One million homeless in flooded Irrawaddy delta

* Nearly 22,500 killed, 41,000 missing

* U.S. and Australia in plea to junta to let them help

(Recasts with details)

By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON, May 7 (Reuters) - Aid was trickling in on Wednesday for an estimated one million victims of Cyclone Nargis in military-ruled Myanmar, with the death toll of more than 22,500 expected to mount.

France has suggested invoking a U.N. "responsibility to protect" clause and delivering aid directly to Myanmar without waiting for approval from the military in Yangon.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told reporters on Wednesday the idea was under discussion at the United Nations in New York.

Myanmar TV, the main official source for casualties and damage, had no fresh updates on Tuesday's report that 22,464 were killed and 41,054 missing in Asia's most devastating cyclone since a 1991 storm in neighbouring Bangladesh that killed 143,000.

Richard Horsey of the United Nations Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told Reuters in Bangkok the death toll was expected to rise.

"With all those dead mostly floating in the water at this point you can get some idea of the conditions facing the teams on the ground. It's a major logistical challenge," Horsey said.

Governments and aid agencies around the world showed eagerness to help, but experts say Myanmar's ruling military must overcome their distrust of the outside world and open up to a full-scale international relief operation.

MORE

08 May 2008 11:44:54 GMT
Source: Reuters

* U.S. still awaiting approval for aid flights

* Little evidence of relief effort in delta

* Red Cross/Red Crescent says first aid plane takes off

* U.N. food flights delayed by lack of junta approval (Recasts with Red Cross/Red Crescent aid flight taking off)

By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON, May 8 (Reuters) - Desperate survivors cried out for aid on Thursday nearly a week after Cyclone Nargis killed up to 100,000 people, as pressure piled up on Myanmar to throw its doors open to an international relief operation.

The United States was still awaiting approval from Myanmar's junta to start military aid flights, but the U.N. food agency and Red Cross/Red Crescent said they have started flying in emergency relief after some delays.

U.S. ambassador Eric John told a news conference in Bangkok that the United States and Thailand had thought the Myanmar generals had agreed to let a U.S military cargo plane fly in supplies.

But that turned out to be premature.

"We don't have permission yet for the C-130 to go in, but I emphasise 'yet'" John said.

Approval for such a flight would be surprising given the huge distrust and acrimony between the former Burma's generals and Washington, which has imposed tough sanctions to try to end decades of military rule.

more

New York Times, By Seth Mydans, May 10

BANGKOK — Myanmar is willing to receive disaster relief from the outside world but not relief workers, the country’s military government said Friday, as supplies into the country were still being delayed nearly one week after a devastating cyclone and aid experts were being turned back as they arrived. In a statement, Myanmar’s military junta said it would distribute international relief supplies itself.

Myanmar said it had turned back one relief flight because, in addition to disaster relief supplies, it carried disaster assessment experts and an unauthorized media group.

"Myanmar is not in a position to receive rescue and information teams from foreign countries at the moment," the statement, from the Foreign Ministry, said. "But at present Myanmar is giving priority to receiving relief aid and distributing them to the storm-hit regions with its own resources."

The first of two major international aid shipments arrived Thursday by aircraft from the United Nations World Food Program, carrying high energy biscuits, water containers, food and plastic sheets.

But two of four United Nations experts who flew in on Friday were turned back at the airport for unknown reasons, said John Holmes, a relief coordinator for the United Nations.

09 May 2008 13:04:20 GMT
Source: Reuters

* Myanmar impounds food, U.N. agency halts flights

* Qatari rescue team turned back

* Thai PM cancels talks on aid with junta

* U.N. says 1.5 million people "severely affected" (Adds details and quotes)

By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON, May 9 (Reuters) - The U.N. food agency suspended aid flights to cyclone-struck Myanmar on Friday after the military government seized two deliveries at Yangon airport, apparently determined to distribute supplies on its own.

The shipments of 38 tonnes of high-energy biscuits, enough to feed 95,000 people, were intended to be loaded on trucks and sent to the inundated Irrawaddy delta where most of the estimated 1.5 million victims need help.

"We're going to have to shut down our very small airlift operation until we get guarantees from the authorities that we'll be able to have the food when it arrives," U.N. World Food Programme regional director Tony Banbury told CNN.

"I am furious. It is unacceptable."

Governments around the world have been pressing Myanmar's ruling generals to open the country's borders to desperately-needed assistance and on Friday, Germany said it agreed with a proposal by France to use the U.N. Security Council.

The official death toll remains at nearly 23,000, with 42,119 people missing. Experts fear it could be as high as 100,000 in what is the worst cyclone to hit Asia since 1991, when 143,000 people were killed in Bangladesh.

The Myanmar government has stated its preference through the state-run media that it would accept "relief in cash and kind" but not foreign aid workers.

"It should be on trucks headed to the victims. You've seen the conditions they are in. That food is now sitting on a tarmac doing no good," Banbury said.

Planes loaded with food and equipment from several Asian countries have landed in Yangon in the past few days and two flights with supplies from the WFP.

"Myanmar is not in a position to receive rescue and information teams from foreign countries at the moment," a foreign ministry statement published in state-run newspapers said. "But at present Myanmar is giving priority to receiving relief aid and distributing them to the storm-hit regions with its own resources."

IMPASSE

In another sign of the impasse between the military rulers and countries eager to kick start a major international relief operation, the prime minister of neighbouring Thailand cancelled a planned trip there this weekend.

"After they said today they would not welcome foreign staff, there is no point of me going there," said Samak Sundaravej who had been urged by the United States and Britain to try and open the doors.

With saltwater ruining wells, grain stores and rice fields, the relief task ahead will be enormous. The United Nations estimates at least 1.5 million people out of a population of 53 million are "severely affected" -- needing food and shelter.

more

.... unpacks what's really going on with the aid Kabuki:

Fools Rush In......To Seek Geopolitical Advantage from Myanmar’s Crisis

For the impassioned interventionist, Myanmar has it all: a corrupt and despotic junta, a gallant pro-democracy princess, and brave, battling monks. Now it’s got a colossal humanitarian crisis that throws the failures and flaws of the detested regime into sharp relief.

One thing it doesn’t have: a government so callous and shortsighted it will refuse international aid in order to preserve its own rule.

However, this is a line that the United States and its allies are pushing, apparently in an effort to delegitimize and weaken the Myanmar regime and maybe tally up a regime change success on the cheap, courtesy of an unprecedented natural disaster.

As a result, we may sacrifice an important source of credibility and leverage in Asia—America’s perceived willingness to provide apolitical disaster relief—and open the door for China to supplant us in this key role.

A casual Western reader could be forgiven for believing that the Myanmar regime is refusing to accept international aid in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. ...

CBC, May 11

Eight days after Cyclone Nargis tore through Burma, the British group Oxfam has warned that the lives of up to 1.5 million people are in danger from diseases if clean water and sanitation are not provided soon.

Oxfam regional chief Sarah Ireland said "there are all the factors" for a public health catastrophe.

"We are afraid there is a real risk of a massive public catastrophe waiting to happen in Myanmar. It is a perfect storm, if you will," she told reporters on Sunday.

In its latest tally, state media in Burma, also known as Myanmar, said 28,458 people caught in the cyclone have died and 33,416 are missing.

Some international aid organizations say the death toll could soon climb to more than 100,000 as conditions worsen.

New York Times, May 11

THANAP PIN SATE, Myanmar — The bodies come and go with the tides. They wash up onto the riverbanks or float grotesquely downstream, almost always face down. They are all but ignored by the living.

In the southern reaches of the Irrawaddy Delta, where the only access to hundreds of small villages is by boat, the remains of the victims of the May 3 cyclone that swept across Myanmar are rotting in the sun.

“These people are strangers,” said Kyaw Swe, a clothing merchant who said he expected the tides to take away the six bloated bodies lying on the muddy banks near his collapsed home. “They come from upstream.”

Villagers here say it is not their responsibility to handle the dead. But the government presence is barely felt in the serpentine network of canals outside Bogale and Phyarpon, devastated towns in the delta, one of the areas hardest hit by the storm.

“When we first saw the bodies floating past, we were sad and afraid,” said Aung Win, a 45-year-old rice farmer, who seemed to have survived because his house is made of hardwood. “Now we just say, here comes another body.”

CBC, May 12

After being blocked by the Burmese government for days, the first U.S. relief plane was allowed into the devastated southeast Asian country on Monday to provide emergency supplies to the victims of a deadly cyclone.

The unarmed military C-130 cargo plane, packed with 13,000 kilograms of water, mosquito nets, blankets and other supplies, took off from a Thai military base and arrived in the Burmese city of Rangoon, military spokesman Lt.-Col. Douglas Powell said.

Two more American air shipments are expected to get clearance to fly in on Tuesday.

Another four U.S. military ships and 11,000 military personnel stationed in southeast Asia are ready to help with the aid mission, but it is unclear whether the military junta that rules Burma, also known as Myanmar, has any intention of giving the troops and equipment clearance to enter its borders.

UN officials estimate disaster may claim as many or more than those killed by 2004's horrific Indian Ocean tsunamis

The Globe and Mail, By Geoffrey York, May 12

BANGKOK — The death toll in Myanmar's cyclone disaster could be as high as 216,000 or more, making it as deadly as the tsunamis that devastated much of Asia in 2004, according to new unofficial estimates from United Nations sources.

The latest estimates, dramatically higher than the official toll of about 28,000, suggest that Myanmar's military regime has been deliberately underestimating the number of victims of the catastrophe that hit the country a week ago.

Relief operations suffered a setback yesterday when a boat sank after hitting a submerged tree trunk as it carried a Red Cross shipment of rice and water for more than 1,000 people. It was the first Red Cross shipment to the Irrawaddy River delta, where the cyclone struck hardest. The crew was rescued, but the supplies were lost.

Relief workers warned that 1.5 million homeless survivors are at risk of dying if assistance is not urgently provided. But relief shipments are still relatively slow because of restrictions imposed by the military regime. At the same time, government resources were diverted away from relief efforts on Saturday to carry out a referendum to legitimize the new pro-junta constitution.

CNN, May 13

U-TAPAO, Thailand -- The United States has sent more aid to cyclone-devastated Myanmar amid allegations that the ruling military junta is keeping the best foreign supplies for itself and doling out rotting food.

Two U.S. military cargo planes flew from Thailand to Myanmar on Tuesday to deliver water, blankets, plastic sheets, mosquito nets and other relief supplies, the military said. Together with a third flight that arrived on Monday, the planes carried 70,000 lbs. of supplies.

The U.S. has offered an additional $13 million in aid to Myanmar, bring its total contribution to $16.25 million, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

However, the United Nations said the World Food Program was getting in only 20 percent of the food needed following the May 3 cyclone because of logistics problems and government restrictions, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.

AP
Wednesday, 14 May 2008

Independent.co.uk Web

The United Nations said today another cyclone was forming near Burma, less than two weeks after it was devastated by a killer storm.

Amanda Pitt, spokeswoman for the UN humanitarian relief programme, could not say where the landfall would be or when it would become a full-fledged cyclone.

She told reporters that another cyclone was likely, saying: "This is terrible."

She said the information about the possible cyclone came from the Joint Typhoon Warning centre, which is part of the UN's World Meteorological Centre.

The May 2-3 cyclone that pulverised Burma's Irrawaddy delta left more than 60,000 people dead or missing.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Centre said on its website that there was "potential for the development" of a storm in the Irrawaddy delta.

It said "the circulation centre (of the storm) is currently transiting generally northwestward across the Yangon delta region of Myanmar (Burma)", which refers to the Irrawaddy delta.

Ms Pitt said if the cyclone warnings came true, the inadequate relief efforts for survivors of Nargis would be jeopardised.

"This is always a worry when you have further hazards affecting people," she said, adding that it "impacts people's ability to survive and cope with what happened to them".

"They are already weak. This is a great problem and impacts on how we can help people," she said.

The news came hours after the first international aid official allowed into the cyclone-devastated Irrawaddy delta by Burma's military leaders described towns rendered unrecognisable, survivors exposed to pouring rain and local "humanitarian" heroes saving lives.

Soldiers have barred foreign aid workers from reaching cyclone survivors in the areas hardest hit by Cyclone Nargis, but gave access to an International Red Cross representative who returned to Rangoon yesterday.

"People who have come here having lost their homes in rural areas have volunteered to work as first aiders. They are humanitarian heroes," said Bridget Gardner, the agency's country head.

In contrast, the ruling junta has been blasted by aid agencies for refusing to allow most foreign experts into the delta and not responding adequately to what they say is a spiralling crisis.

more

Officials say 92% of the ballots cast supported a document that critics say is a sham meant to strengthen the military regime.

Los Angeles Times, May 16

YANGON, MYANMAR -- Myanmar's ruling generals announced Thursday that a new constitution viewed by critics as a pro-government sham had been overwhelming approved by voters.

The commission in charge of the Saturday referendum said 92.4% of voters approved the constitution, state-run media reported. The pro-democracy opposition says the new constitution will enshrine military rule.

Voting was postponed in the country's largest city, Yangon, and the rest of the country's south after Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit just days before the balloting.

Most residents of the storm-ravaged areas, where disease and widespread shortages of food, clean water and medical treatment threaten the lives of injured and weak survivors, are scheduled to cast their ballots May 24.

AP, May 15

YANGON, MYANMAR -- Myanmar's junta warned today that legal action would be taken against people who trade or hoard international aid as the cyclone's death toll soared above 43,000.

It was the first acknowledgment by the military government, albeit indirectly, of problems with relief operations in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis.

The warning came amid reports that foreign aid was being sold openly in markets, and that the military was pilfering and diverting aid for its own use.

The ruling junta has been blasted by aid agencies for refusing to allow most foreign experts into the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta and not responding adequately to what they say is a spiraling crisis.

Diplomat tour finds "huge" damage in delta
Official toll of dead and missing above 133,000
Monks fill gaps in aid distribution

Reuters, By Aung Hla Tun, May 17

YANGON - Diplomats witnessed "huge" devastation in the Irrawaddy delta on Saturday and the toll of dead and missing from the cyclone rose above 133,000 people, making it one of the most damaging to hit Asia.

With about 2.5 million people clinging to survival in the delta, and the military government refusing to admit large-scale outside relief, disaster experts say the death toll from Cyclone Nargis which struck on May 2 could rise dramatically.

"It was useful to catch the magnitude of the devastation. It's huge," Bernard Delpuech, head of the European Commission Humanitarian Office in Yangon, said of the trip.

"For the recovery you can't expect it to be six months or a year. It will take longer," he told Reuters from Yangon, the former Rangoon.

Helicopters took some 60 to 70 diplomats split in three groups to different parts of the delta, where Nargis struck with 120 mph (190 kmh) winds and a 12-foot (3.5 metre) wall of water.

The itineraries were arranged by the Myanmar government, under fire for refusing to allow significant numbers of foreign aid workers and major international aid operations. The generals running the country say they have things in hand.

"The purpose was to show the situation was under control. Where we were they didn't hide anything but of course they selected the places we visited," Delpuech said.

In the last 50 years, only two Asian cyclones have exceeded Nargis in terms of human cost -- a 1970 storm that killed 500,000 people in neighbouring Bangladesh, and another that killed 143,000 in 1991, also in Bangladesh.

AP, May 17

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

Aid workers shackled by the country's military regime struggled to get even the most basic data about the needs of up to 2.5 million survivors. The Red Cross warned that a lack of clean water may swell the ranks of the dead.

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

The toll was nearly double the 43,000 previously reported, but the TV announcement suggested it might be close to a final figure.