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YANGON - The pace of aid deliveries into Myanmar picked up Sunday, but as thousands of starving cyclone survivors turned out on the roads to beg for food and water, experts said far more was needed.
Myanmar's ruling generals, who have refused to allow foreigners in to direct the relief effort, were also condemned for holding a national referendum on the weekend despite the devastation in the country's south.
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The government hailed a "massive turnout" in the vote to ratify a new constitution, even as aid groups warned the official toll of nearly 62,000 dead or missing could rise unless it focused on helping survivors immediately.
An AFP journalist who travelled from Myanmar's main city Yangon to the southern delta, which was ground zero in the disaster, reported there were at least 10,000 people lining the sides of the road, waiting for help.
Hungry and thirsty, their numbers are building fast -- and the only help arriving was from religious groups and well-wishers who pulled up to unload packets of rice and noodles.
Elsewhere, corpses still lay rotting in waterways, jostling against the bloated carcasses of buffaloes and other livestock, as children scavenged for fish in polluted canals.
The government announced Sunday that the official death toll had risen by 5,000
to 28,458, with 33,416 people missing, but diplomats have warned the toll likely exceeds 100,000. The United Nations has said that 220,000 are missing.
Despite the serious hurdles including the impounding of tons of supplies at Yangon's airport, planes laden with goods began thundering into the country,
including a flight chartered by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
"Some opening-up on the part of the (Myanmar) authorities is allowing us to get these materials to their destination," said Stephan Goetghebuer, director of operations of medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres.
"But it's no more than a drip-feed, really, given a serious response is more than required," he said.
The faltering relief effort suffered another setback when a boat carrying Red Cross supplies sank after hitting a submerged tree trunk. The crew, including four Red Cross workers, managed to get to safety.
Much of the cargo was lost but local people and the crew managed to salvage some of the items on board, which included water, clothes, soap, household goods and medical goods.
"Apart from the delay in getting aid to people we may now have to re-evaluate how we transport that aid," said Michael Annear, disaster manager in Yangon for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
State television meanwhile continued to show pictures of the generals casting their ballots in a vote that critics said was intended only to strengthen their 46-year grip on power.
"The question that has to be asked is whether people turned out voluntarily or not, and whether they got to vote according to their minds," said Sunai Phasuk of Human Rights Watch in neighbouring Thailand.
"In any authoritarian country, they try to legitimise themselves through the ballot box," he said.
The poll -- held in all but the areas worst-hit by the cyclone, which will vote later in the month -- went ahead despite stark warnings for the estimated 1.5 million people at grave risk following the disaster.
Many are still without food, clean water, shelter and medical supplies, and the government's insistence that it is "not ready" to let in foreign aid workers has infuriated much of the international community.
"We have the skills and expertise to save lives," Sarah Ireland, regional director of Oxfam, one of many aid groups blocked by the Myanmar government from
sending in its personnel, told a news conference in Bangkok.
"We are here to help," she said, warning that all the factors were in place for a "public health catastrophe" which could multiply the estimates of 100,000 dead by up to 15 times. - AFP/ir
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