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YANGON - More than one million homeless in Myanmar were battling to stave off disease and hunger Thursday, with the military government still limiting foreign assistance six days after a massive cyclone.
With death toll estimates near 100,000 and the clock ticking for those who survived, Myanmar's military rulers -- long suspicious of the outside world -- came under new pressure to open up fully to help from abroad.
Fast Facts
Aid was only trickling in despite warnings that specialists were needed to deliver food and water through disaster zones strewn with rotting bodies, and it was unclear if the government was giving visas to foreign aid staff.
The United States, one of Myanmar's most vocal critics, announced it was not sending an aid flight after earlier saying it was, adding to the sense of confusion and frustration over the international relief effort.
Aid groups said the country needs hundreds of planes to cope with Cyclone Nargis which barrelled into Myanmar overnight Friday, unleashing one of the worst natural disasters in recent history.
They said help was slowly arriving from Thailand, China and India, but not enough -- and not quickly enough -- for most of those in the stricken southwest Irrawaddy delta who saw their villages ripped apart or washed away.
The United Nations said four disaster experts received permission to travel to Myanmar, but there was no immediate word for hundreds of others awaiting a green light from the military, which has ruled the former Burma since 1962.
In a rare break from its policy of non-interference in its members' affairs, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) pressed Myanmar to soften its stance, as did China, Myanmar's most powerful ally.
ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said Myanmar needed to work with the international aid community "before it's too late."
"It's very much a matter of urgency," he said.
Authorities in Yangon raised their official death toll to nearly 23,000 late Wednesday, with state media saying more than 42,000 others were missing.
But a military official in the delta township of Labutta estimated 80,000 dead there alone, and many families there told an AFP reporter most of their relatives had been killed.
"The storm came into our village," said one man in his 20s, "and a giant wave washed in, dragging everything into the sea.
"Houses collapsed, buildings collapsed, and people were swept away. I only survived by hanging on to a big tree." His wife and two children died.
"The waves were so strong, they ripped off all my clothes. I was left naked hanging in a tree," said one teenager.
Around 5,000 square kilometres remain underwater, and more than a million homeless need emergency relief, a UN spokesman said.
"The bottle-neck (in aid) is getting it out in the delta. That needs boats, helicopters, trucks," said Richard Horsey, a Bangkok-based spokesman with the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Shari Villarosa, US charge d'affaires in Myanmar's main city Yangon, said there could be more than 100,000 dead in the Irrawaddy delta, where 95 percent of buildings were reported to have disappeared.
Food prices in Myanmar, already one of the most impoverished nations in the world, have soared. A bag of rice now costs 40,000 kyats (US$35) in the
commercial hub Yangon, up from 25,000 last week.
Petrol on the black market, where most people obtain their fuel, has more than doubled to 11,000 kyats a gallon.
Frustrated aid agencies have said they are still being denied permission to enter Myanmar and use their experience and expertise to ensure the right aid gets to the neediest places as soon as possible.
"It should be a simple matter. It's not a matter of politics. It's a matter of a humanitarian crisis," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.
The military rulers have pledged emergency foreign aid workers will be allowed in, and close ally China urged the generals to open up.
The UN's head of emergency relief, John Holmes, told the BBC 30 countries had offered assistance, adding up to well over US$30 million.
In Labutta, an AFP reporter said there was hardly any food or fresh water left and, as the waters receded, countless corpses have been left rotting in the heat alongside the bloated carcasses of animals.
In some remote villages, residents said rotting corpses were stacking up -- posing the risk of disease -- because they did not have enough fuel to cremate them.
In Yangon, families huddled in Buddhist temples, desperate for food, water and shelter. - AFP/ir
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