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Burma death toll 'likely to hit 80,000'
By ABC correspondent Peter Lloyd and wires
An aid official in Burma says the death toll from Cyclone Nargis may be 80,000 or more.
Kyi Minn is health adviser for World Vision in Burma and he says that on top of the 22,000 the military regime has admitted have died, there are another 60,000 missing - presumed dead.
ABC correspondent Peter Lloyd reports there are also indications that the massive aid effort is being hampered by a lack of organisation and infrastructure in Burma to distribute the urgently needed supplies.
The storm happened at the weekend, but the military junta's slowness to let international aid agencies in has meant that many devastated areas have still seen no help.
Agencies are still battling to get all the visas and permits they need to do their work in flooded and cyclone-ravaged towns and villages.
More details are emerging from Burma about the scale of death and destruction caused by cyclone Nargis.
Kyi Minn says water is in short supply and power to many communities is still cut.
"We don't have direct communication with them because there is no phone lines and transportation is very limited because of the roads are still blocked and some areas are flooded and you cannot go, so we have to rely on the information that's brought by the eye witnesses there," Mr Minn said.
"So they were saying that the areas there is quite serious. They found a lot of dead bodies there and the sanitation is quite bad over there."
The aid agency save the Children says millions of people have been left homeless in the worst affected region in southern Burma.
The Rangoon-based organisation says there are harrowing accounts emerging of villages where ******* bodies have begun decomposing, posing a serious health risk for survivors.
Aid workers who flew over the southern region said entire villages appear to have been washed away, and seen rice fields strewn with bodies.
Save the Children's country director Andrew Kirkwood said there were unconfirmed reports that people were dying as a result of receiving no supplies of food or clean water since the storm hit on Saturday.
Aid agencies are calling for speedier access to survivors, with Burma's military government still refusing to issue travel visas.
Kyi Minn says the delay in allowing international aid in has created a problem.
"It will be a big problem but we cannot wait for the international aid to come. We have to rely also on the local communities," he said.
"So what we are also doing is we also mobilise the local communities there and nearby villages and there's a very high spirit of voluntarism, so they are also helping each other.
"They bring in food and water supply to the affected area wherever they could - so we are working together with the local communities there."
The United Nations food agency says the cyclone damage to Burma's rice crops may cause food shortages.
The storm has hit an area that produces 65 per cent of the country's rice output, which puts a further strain on the already tight world rice market.
Australia's Ambassador to Burma, Bob Davis, is in Rangoon and he says there is concern the authorities are not doing enough to help the relief effort.
"We are concerned though that they seemed not to be focusing on what is the major priority one would have expected at this stage, and that is to address the humanitarian problems and have that as a priority issue rather than continuing their proposal to proceed with the referendum," Mr Davis said.
Aid hampered
ABC correspondent Peter Lloyd says when aid supplies arrived at Rangoon airport, they had to be unloaded by hand.
"One of the things that was self evident at Rangoon airport yesterday when the Thai military flew in their supplies was that they flew them in on large Hercules type aircraft. When they got there they discovered that there was no forklifts, even at the airport, to move stuff around so they had to get off and do hand to hand, shoulder to shoulder unpacking of the aircraft," he said.
"So, it's at that very elementary level that the infrastructure in Burma because of years of disgraceful behaviour by the regime has left this country bankrupt of the kind of infrastructure it needs to respond to a crisis on this level."
He says the World Health Organisation (WHO) is most clearly concerned with cholera and other water-borne disease breaking out.
"There are descriptions coming out from aid agencies who have flown over the worst hit area in the south, describing villages that have been wiped out and they're seeing ******* bodies in rice fields," he said.
"Now this is the same water supply on which the survivors are going to have to rely for drinking and bathing water. So there's a perfect storm, if you like, a follow up which is confronting these people and with which the aid agencies are desperately trying to negotiate their way into to try to give assistance for."
And he says so far, there are not many signs that the military junta will be doing anything to speed up the delivery of aid.
"Well on past indications you'd have to say, thinking back to our coverage of the tsunami disaster in 2004, the regime at first ignored, denied and effectively blamed. They said the scale of the disaster in their country was nowhere near what it later was revealed to have been. The resources simply weren't thrown at Burma because they said they didn't need it," he said.
"Now the regime is showing no greater signs of opening up at the moment. They've let in supplies from some of the ASEAN friendly nations like Thailand who have used military aircraft to move some pretty elementary stuff in, but the scale of the disaster clearly calls for a much larger operation and so far the regime doesn't seem to have acknowledged that, either in public or in practice by rewarding the organisations who need to get in there with the visas."
Burma death toll 'likely to hit 80,000' - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
By ABC correspondent Peter Lloyd and wires
An aid official in Burma says the death toll from Cyclone Nargis may be 80,000 or more.
Kyi Minn is health adviser for World Vision in Burma and he says that on top of the 22,000 the military regime has admitted have died, there are another 60,000 missing - presumed dead.
ABC correspondent Peter Lloyd reports there are also indications that the massive aid effort is being hampered by a lack of organisation and infrastructure in Burma to distribute the urgently needed supplies.
The storm happened at the weekend, but the military junta's slowness to let international aid agencies in has meant that many devastated areas have still seen no help.
Agencies are still battling to get all the visas and permits they need to do their work in flooded and cyclone-ravaged towns and villages.
More details are emerging from Burma about the scale of death and destruction caused by cyclone Nargis.
Kyi Minn says water is in short supply and power to many communities is still cut.
"We don't have direct communication with them because there is no phone lines and transportation is very limited because of the roads are still blocked and some areas are flooded and you cannot go, so we have to rely on the information that's brought by the eye witnesses there," Mr Minn said.
"So they were saying that the areas there is quite serious. They found a lot of dead bodies there and the sanitation is quite bad over there."
The aid agency save the Children says millions of people have been left homeless in the worst affected region in southern Burma.
The Rangoon-based organisation says there are harrowing accounts emerging of villages where ******* bodies have begun decomposing, posing a serious health risk for survivors.
Aid workers who flew over the southern region said entire villages appear to have been washed away, and seen rice fields strewn with bodies.
Save the Children's country director Andrew Kirkwood said there were unconfirmed reports that people were dying as a result of receiving no supplies of food or clean water since the storm hit on Saturday.
Aid agencies are calling for speedier access to survivors, with Burma's military government still refusing to issue travel visas.
Kyi Minn says the delay in allowing international aid in has created a problem.
"It will be a big problem but we cannot wait for the international aid to come. We have to rely also on the local communities," he said.
"So what we are also doing is we also mobilise the local communities there and nearby villages and there's a very high spirit of voluntarism, so they are also helping each other.
"They bring in food and water supply to the affected area wherever they could - so we are working together with the local communities there."
The United Nations food agency says the cyclone damage to Burma's rice crops may cause food shortages.
The storm has hit an area that produces 65 per cent of the country's rice output, which puts a further strain on the already tight world rice market.
Australia's Ambassador to Burma, Bob Davis, is in Rangoon and he says there is concern the authorities are not doing enough to help the relief effort.
"We are concerned though that they seemed not to be focusing on what is the major priority one would have expected at this stage, and that is to address the humanitarian problems and have that as a priority issue rather than continuing their proposal to proceed with the referendum," Mr Davis said.
Aid hampered
ABC correspondent Peter Lloyd says when aid supplies arrived at Rangoon airport, they had to be unloaded by hand.
"One of the things that was self evident at Rangoon airport yesterday when the Thai military flew in their supplies was that they flew them in on large Hercules type aircraft. When they got there they discovered that there was no forklifts, even at the airport, to move stuff around so they had to get off and do hand to hand, shoulder to shoulder unpacking of the aircraft," he said.
"So, it's at that very elementary level that the infrastructure in Burma because of years of disgraceful behaviour by the regime has left this country bankrupt of the kind of infrastructure it needs to respond to a crisis on this level."
He says the World Health Organisation (WHO) is most clearly concerned with cholera and other water-borne disease breaking out.
"There are descriptions coming out from aid agencies who have flown over the worst hit area in the south, describing villages that have been wiped out and they're seeing ******* bodies in rice fields," he said.
"Now this is the same water supply on which the survivors are going to have to rely for drinking and bathing water. So there's a perfect storm, if you like, a follow up which is confronting these people and with which the aid agencies are desperately trying to negotiate their way into to try to give assistance for."
And he says so far, there are not many signs that the military junta will be doing anything to speed up the delivery of aid.
"Well on past indications you'd have to say, thinking back to our coverage of the tsunami disaster in 2004, the regime at first ignored, denied and effectively blamed. They said the scale of the disaster in their country was nowhere near what it later was revealed to have been. The resources simply weren't thrown at Burma because they said they didn't need it," he said.
"Now the regime is showing no greater signs of opening up at the moment. They've let in supplies from some of the ASEAN friendly nations like Thailand who have used military aircraft to move some pretty elementary stuff in, but the scale of the disaster clearly calls for a much larger operation and so far the regime doesn't seem to have acknowledged that, either in public or in practice by rewarding the organisations who need to get in there with the visas."
Burma death toll 'likely to hit 80,000' - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
