Yangon: Disease, hunger and thirst pose a major threat to hundreds of thousands of survivors of Cyclone Nargis, aid agencies said on Wednesday, urging Myanmar's military rulers to open the doors to international humanitarian relief.
With 22,500 dead and 41,000 missing, most of them from a massive storm surge that washed over the Irrawaddy delta, it is the most devastating cyclone to hit Asia since 1991, when 143,000 people died in neighbouring Bangladesh. "Time is of the essence," Ann Veneman, Executive Director of the United Nations children's fund UNICEF, said in a statement.
"In situations such as these, children are highly vulnerable to disease and hunger and they need immediate help to survive." Aid officials say hundreds of thousands will have been left homeless in the vast swamplands of the delta, where mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue are endemic.
There will also be the risk of cholera and chronic diarrhoea from filthy water and corpses rotting in the tropical heat and humidity of Southeast Asia. Governments and aid agencies urged the secretive government to relax their tight grip to allow humanitarian assistance into Myanmar, which has been ruled by the military for 46 years.
It has been under US financial sanctions since 2003, but Washington on Tuesday lifted an aid requirement to try and make it easier to provide direct assistance.
The UN's World Food Programme began doling out rice in Yangon, the largest city and former capital, where people are having to queue for water and food prices are skyrocketing. "The food security situation in the country, which was already severe, is likely to become more acute," the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its most recent assessment of the disaster. The first batch of more than $10 million of foreign aid arrived from Thailand but a lack of specialised equipment slowed distribution. Two more aid flights are due to land from India early on Wednesday.
UNICEF said it was distributing aid. Despite the disaster's size, France said the former Burma's ruling generals were still placing too many conditions on aid. "The United Nations is asking the Burmese government to open its doors. The Burmese government replies: 'Give us money, we'll distribute it.' We can't accept that," Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told parliament. Rashid Khalikov, a senior UN aid official, appealed to Myanmar to waive visa requirements for UN aid workers trying to get into the country of 53 million. "Unfortunately we cannot tell you how many people are in need of assistance," he said.
"We just clearly understand that it will probably be in the hundreds of thousands." Information Minister Kyaw Hsan said the military were "doing their best" but there could be fallout for the uniformed rulers who pride themselves on their ability to cope with any challenge. "The myth they have projected about being well-prepared has been totally blown away," said analyst Aung Naing Oo, who fled to Thailand after a brutally crushed 1988 uprising.
"This could have a tremendous political impact in the long term." The information minister said Myanmar had sufficient stocks of rice despite damage to grain stored in the delta, known as the "rice bowl of Asia" 50 years ago when Burma was the world's largest exporter. But even in villages that managed to withstand the worst of the winds, vital supplies were running out, residents said. Reflecting the scale of the crisis, the junta said it would postpone a constitutional referendum in the worst-hit areas. But state TV said the May 10 vote on the charter, part of the army's much-criticized "roadmap to democracy," would proceed as planned in the rest of the Southeast Asian nation.
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