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UNITED NATIONS - UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday he was sending the organization's top humanitarian official to cyclone-hit Myanmar to try to persuade the country's military rulers to open up to foreign aid.
He was speaking after an emergency meeting of international diplomats called to discuss a strategy for escalating the humanitarian response in Myanmar, where fears are growing for two million survivors of Cyclone Nargis.
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"I'm considering sending under-secretary-general of OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) Mr. John Holmes with the World Food Program airplane with humanitarian assistance in very near days," Ban said.
Questioned by reporters shortly afterwards, a spokesman for the UN chief said the decision to send Holmes to Myanmar had already been taken.
Despite condemnation, Myanmar's military government tightened access to the cyclone disaster zone Wednesday, turning back foreigners and rejecting new pleas from Thailand's Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej.
After a brief visit to Myanmar for talks with Prime Minister Thein Sein, Samak said the military government had again ruled out allowing in foreign experts.
"They insisted they can take care of their people and their country. They can manage by themselves," he said.
However, in Washington later, the US ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Scot Marciel, suggested some shift in Myanmar's position.
"We heard today that the Burmese (Myanmar) authorities had granted permission for foreign experts to come in from neighbouring countries, including China, India, Bangladesh and Thailand," he told reporters.
Ban said too much time had been spent on trying to deliver supplies and obtain visas for foreign aid workers whose expertise is urgently needed to bring help to the remote and flooded disaster zone in the south.
"Even though the Myanmar government has shown some sense of flexibility, at this time it's far, far too short," he said in New York, saying the scale of the crisis required "much more mobilization of resources and aid workers."
Ban said the aid operation was entering its "second stage," reflecting views that almost two weeks after the storm hit, it may be too late for many sick and hungry victims who have received little government help.
Holmes meanwhile urged Myanmar's rulers to make a "radical change" and allow in foreign aid workers to avoid a second wave of cyclone deaths, saying access was "the biggest problem we have at the moment."
A top European Union humanitarian official said there was now a risk of famine, after the May 3 storm destroyed rice stocks in a main farming region in one of the world's poorest and most isolated countries.
"If there is a lack of access, more people will die," said Louis Michel, the EU's humanitarian aid commissioner, before heading to Myanmar for talks with the ruling generals.
State media raised the death toll to 38,491 with 27,838 missing Wednesday, but British minister Douglas Alexander said reports from agencies on the ground indicated the number of dead and missing could rise above 200,000.
Tonnes of aid is flowing into Myanmar -- five more US relief flights arrived Wednesday and a senior US military official said it had received verbal approval for another five.
But aid groups warn a lack of infrastructure and heavy equipment means not nearly enough is reaching the southern Irrawaddy Delta.
Despite the urgent need for food, clean water and shelter, the military, which has ruled the country with an iron hand for almost half a century, appears to fear that any outside influence could weaken its tight control.
Foreign reporters said they were turned back at roadblocks on the way to the delta Wednesday, and even citizens had to prove they were visiting friends or relatives.
Reporters who have made it to the delta relate scenes of almost unimaginable misery and despair.
Untold numbers of corpses have been left rotting in ground that is little more than a saltwater swamp, thousands of hungry people are begging in the streets, and most rice stocks are soaked and ruined.
"The rice we got is already wet from the rain. It's not very good to eat," 22-year-old Thin Thin told a reporter who made it to one of the remote delta regions.
Compounding the misery, heavy rain is forecast to hit the Irrawaddy Delta over the coming days. - AFP/ir
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