The United Nations food agency suspended aid flights to cyclone-struck Burma on Friday after the military government seized two deliveries at Rangoon airport, apparently determined to distribute supplies on its own. Governments around the world have been pressing Burma’s ruling generals to open the country’s borders to desperately needed assistance.
Burma will accept foreign aid but distribute relief itself, an official newspaper said on Friday, after a disaster rescue team from Qatar that arrived in Rangoon on an aid flight was turned back. Outside frustration is mounting at delays by the generals in giving visas to aid workers and landing rights for flights.
Aid was trickling in on Wednesday for an estimated one million victims of Cyclone Nargis in military-ruled Burma, with the death toll of more than 22 500 expected to mount. France has suggested invoking a United Nations ”responsibility to protect” clause and delivering aid directly to Burma without waiting for approval from the military in Rangoon.
Disease, hunger and thirst pose a major threat to hundreds of thousands of survivors of Cyclone Nargis, aid agencies said on Wednesday, urging Burma’s military rulers to open the doors to international humanitarian relief. Aid officials estimate hundreds of thousands are homeless in the swamplands of the delta south-west of the biggest city Rangoon.
A powerful cyclone that slammed into Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta triggered a massive wave that gave people nowhere to run, killing at least 15Â 000 and leaving 30Â 000 others missing, officials said on Tuesday. ”More deaths were caused by the tidal wave than the storm itself,” Minister for Relief and Resettlement Maung Maung Swe told a news conference.
Burma’s military government raised its death toll from Cyclone Nargis on Tuesday to nearly 22 500 with a further 41 000 missing, nearly all of them from a massive storm surge. The United Nations’ World Food Programme began doling out emergency rice in Rangoon and the first batch of more than -million worth of foreign aid arrived from Thailand on Tuesday
Burma’s military junta believes at least 10 000 people died in a cyclone that ripped through the Irrawaddy Delta, triggering a massive international aid response for the pariah nation. ”The basic message was that they believe the provisional death toll was about 10 000, with 3 000 missing,” a Rangoon-based diplomat said in Bangkok.
Burma’s military authorities a foreign aid workers struggled on Monday to assess the damage from a devastating cyclone that killed more than 350 people and left tens of thousands homeless. The death toll is likely to climb as the authorities slowly make contact with islands and villages in the delta, the rice bowl of Burma.
A cyclone killed more than 350 people in military-ruled Burma, ripping through Rangoon and the Irrawaddy delta where it flattened at least two towns, officials and state media said on Sunday. Packing winds of 190km per hour when it hit on Saturday morning, Cyclone Nargis devastated the Burma’s leafy main city, littering the streets with overturned cars.
BUrma’s military government declared disaster areas in five states on Sunday after a large tropical cyclone pounded the Irrawaddy delta region and killed at least four people in Yangon, state newspapers said. Cyclone Nargis, which was packing 190km per hour winds when it hit on Saturday, left the streets of Burma’s main city littered with debris from fallen trees and battered buildings.