100,000 may have died in Myanmar, says diplomat

Thailand, China, India and Indonesia were flying in relief supplies and the UN World Food Programme said it had sent four planes with aid that were expected to arrive on Thursday.

The military junta's own aid operation has moved up a gear with some helicopter drops into the region. However a witness in the Irrawaddy delta told Reuters that land convoys were nowhere to be seen.

The top United States diplomat in Myanmar warned that more than 100,000 people may have died in the cyclone and storm surge - four times the current official estimate.

US charge d'affaires Shari Villarosa says the estimate is based on information provided by an international non-governmental organization, which she declined to name.

She said it was not a confirmed death toll, but that recent estimates by the Myanmar government put the number of deaths at 70,000, mainly in the Irrawaddy delta area.

"The government officials told us 95 percent of the buildings in the delta area are gone or have collapsed."

The statement came as the United States and the United Nations continued pressuring Myanmar's military rulers to open the country's borders to more international help.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Myanmar's government should allow the international community to help its people, and that humanitarian access should not be a political matter.

In its latest broadcasts, Myanmar state media has put the death toll at almost 23,000, with another 42,000 missing. Up to a million are without shelter.

The cyclone slammed into coastal towns and villages in the rice-growing delta southwest of Yangon on Saturday. Witnesses reported entire villages destroyed.
Visa delays

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Myanmar do more to facilitate international aid.

Relief workers of the United Nations, which already has a presence in the diplomatically isolated country, were awaiting visas five days after the cyclone struck.

UN humanitarian official John Holmes said as many as 100 of the organisation's staff are waiting for visas. He said they had not been refused visas, but the process was taking too long.

However, aid agency World Vision in Australia said it had been granted special visas to send in personnel to back up 600 staff in the country.

Myanmar's junta has appointed a minister to review visa applications from foreign aid workers seeking to join the relief effort.

Aid agency Save the Children says most people assume those missing are dead.

Its Myanmar country director Andrew Kirkwood says piles of bodies have begun rotting in the disaster zone.

Military helicopters dropped food and water on Tuesday throughout the delta, where entire villages were virtually washed away in a massive storm surge.

A doctor in the town of Labutta says villagers told him thousands died when a series of huge waves slammed into their homes. He says people clung to trees in a desperate fight for survival.
Water, sanitation pressing

Survivors faced poor sanitation and a lack of access to clean water, the United Nations children's agency UNICEF said in statement.

Thailand has airlifted 30 tonnes of medical supplies to Myanmar in the second shipment in two days. It included first aid kits, water purification tablets, rubbish bags and other supplies.

The Thai public health ministry says 40 medical teams are on standby to go into Myanmar, when they get permission.

India has also sent two navy ships loaded with relief and medical supplies.

The World Food Programme, the United Nation's food aid branch, began distributing rice in cyclone-damaged areas of the main city Yangon on Tuesday.

UNICEF says it has dispatched five teams to three of the most affected areas.
Water a barrier

World Vision workers may have to cross waterways in boats or by swimming to get to the worst affected areas.

The agency's Myanmar spokesperson, Joy Hla Gyaw, says there are fears dead bodies in the waterways may lead to outbreaks of disease.

But Ms Hla Gyaw says people in Yangon are trying to get back to normal, despite damage to buildings, and lack of power and running water.

She says more roads are open, and some shops in suburban areas.
Most NZers accounted for

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade says it now knows of only one New Zealander unaccounted for in Myanmar.

Rosemary Paterson, director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs consular division, says the remaining person is known to be in a rural area, and the lack of contact may be due to communication difficulties.
(Source-http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/latest/200805081242/34bc9eae)