Burma cyclone death toll 'worse than Tsunami' » Environment » 24dash.com

Charity workers will today start distributing aid supplies to thousands of people stranded by the cyclone in Burma, as fears rose of a big rise in the overall death toll.

Burma's state media said the cyclone has killed at least 10,000 people in one town alone, a significant increase over state media reports yesterday about the disaster.

The 10,000 perished in the town of Bogalay in the low-lying Irrawaddy delta, the hardest-hit area when Cyclone Nargis struck on Saturday, state television said.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been left without shelter or clean drinking water.

James East, of the charity World Vision, said: "People are saying this is worse than the Tsunami. It's like a war zone. The number of dead is just staggering."

Speaking to GMTV from Bangkok, Thailand, he added: "Water is running out. The government has asked us to supply water purification tablets and units. We want to do that as soon as possible. The children are the most vulnerable."

Save the Children said it was set to hand out two metric tonnes of food and other supplies to those affected in Rangoon.

In Rangoon the homeless are crammed into public buildings including schools and churches, with some shelters housing more than 1,000 people.

The Red Cross has already begun distributing water purification tablets and mosquito nets, and is preparing to hand out emergency shelters in the worst-hit areas.

The United Nations said last night that Burmese government officials were willing to accept international aid, but details of how supplies will be distributed would have to be worked out first.

This followed pleas by Foreign Office Minister Meg Munn who called on Burma's ruling military junta to act quickly.

She said: "We are deeply concerned by the situation in Burma in the wake of cyclone Nargis, and saddened by the terrible loss of life.

"The priority must be to mobilise aid to all those affected to avoid further suffering.

"We call on the Burmese regime to provide rapid support to its people and to accept international assistance."

The country's Foreign Minister Nyan Win said on state television last night that more than 10,000 people had been killed in the 120mph storm.

Areas hardest hit included the Irrawaddy delta, Rangoon, Bago, Karen and Mon regions with a combined estimated population of 24 million people.

A spokesman for the Department for International Development said: "We are seriously concerned about the situation in Burma, with the increasing loss of life and for those that remain vulnerable, following the impact of cyclone Nargis.

"We are monitoring the situation very closely and, following an indication that Burma is ready to accept international aid, are working with the UN and other bodies to draw up a detailed assessment and consider an appropriate response. We stand ready to send to send humanitarian staff to help with co-ordination and assessment of the situation."

The UK is the largest donor to the UN Central Emergency Response Fund, giving £40 million a year, and is one of the few countries providing long term humanitarian assistance inside Burma, the spokesman said.

Shadow international development secretary Andrew Mitchell said: "It's disappointing that it has taken three days for the Burmese regime to accept international aid.

"The international relief effort must bear in mind the hard-learnt lessons from the Asian tsunami: the need to focus on the poorest, to work in co-ordination with the local relief effort, and to effectively monitor the impact of aid on the ground.

"This will be difficult given the nature of the Burmese regime and the restrictions it imposes on humanitarian actors."

Burma's ruling junta, which has spurned the international community for decades, urgently appealed for foreign aid at a meeting yesterday.

The appeal came less than a week ahead of a crucial referendum on a military-backed constitution that the ruling junta hoped would go smoothly in its favour, despite opposition from the country's pro-democracy movement.

But commentators said the disaster could stir the already tense political situation in the country.

The storm has left hundreds of thousands of people homeless and without clean drinking water, according to Richard Horsey, a spokesman in Bangkok, Thailand, for the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Diplomats said they were told Burma welcomed international aid including urgently needed roofing materials, medicine, water purifying tablets and mosquito nets.

The appeal for assistance was unusual for Burma's ruling generals, who have long been suspicious of the international organisations and have closely controlled their activities.

Mr Horsey said it appeared the United Nations had the green light to send in a team to assess the storm's damage as early as today.

The government had apparently taken few efforts to prepare for the storm, which came bearing down on the country from the Bay of Bengal late on Friday.

Weather warnings broadcast on television would have been largely useless for the worst-hit rural areas where the electricity supply is unreliable and television a rarity.

"The government misled people," said Thin Thin, a grocery story owner in Rangoon. "They could have warned us about the severity of the coming cyclone so we could be better prepared."

Rangoon, where officials said 59 people died, was without electricity except where gas-fed generators were available and residents lined up to buy candles at double the usual price.

Most homes were without water, forcing families to stand in long lines for drinking water and bathe in the city's lakes.

Most telephone landlines appeared to be restored by late yesterday, but mobile phones and internet connections were down.

Some in Rangoon complained that the 400,000-strong military was only clearing streets where the ruling elite resided but leaving residents, including Buddhist monks, to cope on their own in most other areas.

Burma has been under military rule since 1962.

Its government has been widely criticised for suppression of pro-democracy parties such as the one led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for almost 12 of the past 18 years.