UN: Progress in Myanmar disaster relief still 'inadequate'

May 14, 2008, 14:05 GMT

A Burmese cyclone survivor woman carries her son near a tent at a cyclon devastated area in Kunyangon, Southern Myanmar, 14 May 2008. EPA/EPA PHOTO

As the European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid Louis Michel and the Thai Prime Minister flew into cyclone-ravaged Myanmar Wednesday to persuade the country's junta to grant access for disaster relief and visas for aid workers, the United Nations warned that the aid getting into Myanmar was still inadequate.

Thirteen days after Cyclone Nargis struck, the international community had made some progress, but 'the levels of aid getting in are not adequate and not enough to meet the needs of the people on the ground,' said Amanda Pitt, a spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

EU Commissioner Michel said that the main aim of his mission was 'to explain to the Myanmar authorities that our goal is strictly humanitarian.'

'What we want is to ask the military authorities to open access for our humanitarian work.'

Reportedly in response to a request form United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej flew to Myanmar to persuade the junta to grant visas for aid workers.

The international community has become increasingly frustrated with the junta's delaying humanitarian aid for its own people since Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar's central coastal region on May 2 to 3.

Up to 100,000 people have been killed, according to UN estimates, and up to 2 million have been left without access to food, water, shelter and medicines.

According to the government's most recent estimate, issued late Tuesday, the cyclone killed 34,273 people and left 27,838 missing.

Myanmar's government has appealed for 160 relief personnel from neighbouring Bangladesh, China, India and Thailand, to assist the government's own disaster relief efforts, while delaying granting visas to many experts from elsewhere, a UN official said Wednesday.

There have been no official explanations offered as to why some experts are allowed in and others are not.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said Wednesday that the worst-hit region of the Irrawaddy Delta - the country's rice bowl - will need more than 200 million dollars in agricultural aid soon to prevent a severe food shortage this year and next.

'Every dollar spent now on agriculture will save 10 dollars in food aid next year,' predicted FAO spokesman Diderik de Vleschauwer.

The Irrawaddy Delta accounts for an estimated 60 per cent of Myanmar's annual rice crop.

Meanwhile, the aid push is also facing huge logistical obstacles getting supplies out to the countryside on account of the poor, and now cyclone damaged infrastructure in the Irrawaddy delta.

Roads are poor in the delta and bridges can handle only five-ton loads on trucks, posing logistical challenges.

'The good news from Yangon is that the port is open again,' said World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman Marcus Prior.

'But it is not clear yet what size of vessels we can get in,' he added.

The WFP is also looking into the possibility of using helicopters to take supplies to some of the most remote areas in the delta, which remain totally cut off from the supply flow.

Of the estimated 750,000 people in need of food, the WFP estimates that it has so far been able to reach only 50,000.

Meanwhile, the country's devastated population now face a new threat of an ongoing tropical storm that could turn in to another cyclone.

Chances are 'good' that a storm in the Indian Ocean could be upgraded to a cyclone as it heads toward landfall in Myanmar, the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre said from its Hawaii headquarters Wednesday.

The storm was situated about 30 nautical miles (56 kilometres) south-west of Yangon at the time the alert was issued.

However, the Indian Meterological Department while forecasting a low pressure belt over the Bay of Bengal near the coast of Myanmar, said it was likely to being rainfall and not a cyclone.