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YANGON : Desperate survivors of the Myanmar cyclone were awaiting supplies of food and water Wednesday, as foreign aid workers said they still had no idea when the secretive government would let them in to help.
Five days after the disaster, which killed more than 22,000 and left nearly twice as many missing, there were few signs of police or soldiers to assist the estimated hundreds of thousands of homeless in Yangon, Myanmar's main city.
Fast Facts
Residents said they were mostly left to clear debris on their own or with help from monks, sparking criticism from aid groups that the ruling generals, who have long spurned the outside world, had not issued visas to enter.
"We are trying to get maximum cooperation from the government," Rashid Khalikov, a top emergency relief official from the United Nations, told reporters in New York.
"We applied for visas. We have not got the visas," he said. "This is a critical moment for the affected populations."
Health experts said there were fears of mass outbreaks of disease, both in Yangon and the even harder-hit remote south, as untold numbers of people had no fresh water to drink or bathe in, and many were left to sleep out in the open.
Aid workers who on Tuesday flew over parts of the south, where entire villages were washed away, reported scenes of utter devastation -- rice fields strewn with bodies, and not enough food, water or shelter for survivors.
The military announced Tuesday that foreign experts wanting to come in would need to "negotiate" with the government, which has long been distrustful of any foreign presence here and keeps strict controls on outside organisations.
In addition to worries about food and water, Yangon residents are also scrambling to get fuel, which is always tightly rationed here, for their cars and power generators. Queues at petrol stations were long.
The government said 41,000 people were still missing since Cyclone Nargis barrelled into the coast early Saturday packing winds of 190 kilometres (120 miles) per hour, deepening fears the death toll will keep rising. Millions of others have been left homeless .
The United States, which has for years pushed to tighten the sanctions that critics say have only worsened the situation for Myanmar's people, said it had two ships nearby loaded with supplies and awaiting the government's approval.
"Let the United States come to help you," US President George W. Bush said in Washington.
But the military, which has kept an iron grip on the country since seizing power nearly half a century ago, is wary of the outside world -- and especially the United States, which has taken a hard line on the military regime.
Instead, people in Yangon took to the streets themselves, assisted by Buddhist monks as they chopped away with knives and axes at uprooted trees that have blocked roads, and worked to move chunks of rooftops torn off building.
"We are now relying on monks to clear this road," said a middle-aged woman in western Yangon, speaking on condition of anonymity because she feared reprisal from the government.
"Of course we were hoping the authorities would come, but they haven't shown up yet," she told AFP.
Some foreign aid, particularly from fellow nations in Southeast Asia, has been trickling into the country, which was once known as Burma and is now one of the poorest nations on the planet.
Thailand airlifted in 30 tonnes of medical supplies on Wednesday, the second delivery to its neighbour in two days. Thailand's public health ministry said it had 40 medical teams on stand-by who had not been given vias to come in.
In the past the military has proved its willingness to ignore international opinion, and it was not immediately clear what effect the criticism about the visas would have.
It declined international assistance following the 2004 Asian tsunami, and has repeatedly rejected complaints about its long detention of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and its slow-moving efforts to restore democracy.
It said Tuesday that a constitutional referendum set for this coming weekend would still go ahead in most parts of the country despite the tragedy, a move Aung San Suu Kyi's party called unacceptable.
A state newspaper reported Wednesday that the government had sent back a BBC reporter who had tried to enter with a tourist, not journalist, visa.
- AFP /ls
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