Aid slowly trickles into ravaged Myanmar

YANGON, Myanmar — Travel and visa obstacles on Tuesday hampered aid deliveries to the estimated 1 million people in Myanmar believed to be homeless after the devastating cyclone, officials said.

International aid began to trickle in, but the stricken Irrawaddy delta, the nation's rice bowl where more than 22,000 people died and twice as many are missing, remained cut off from the world.

In the former capital of Yangon, soldiers from the repressive military regime were out on the streets in large numbers for the first time since Cyclone Nargis hit over the weekend, helping to clear away rubble. Buddhist monks and Catholic nuns wielded axes and long knives to remove ancient, fallen trees that were once the city's pride.

Assistance had started to reach people in and around Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, said Chris Kaye, the U.N. World Food Program's director for Myanmar, which is also known as Burma.

However, coastal areas of the delta worst hit by the high winds and tidal surges were out of reach for aid workers, isolated by flooding and road damage.

Electricity remained cut for nearly all 6.5 million residents of Yangon, while water supply was restored in only a few areas. Some residents waited in lines for nine hours or more to buy gasoline to fuel generators and their cars.

The World Food Program said international aid began to flow, with 800 tons of food getting through to the first of nearly 1 million people left homeless by the cyclone.

However, U.N. relief spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said some U.N. workers planning to assess needs were still awaiting their visas to enter the country.

The U.N. emergency-relief coordinator said a number of organizations felt visas were "a concern" and that the United Nations was asking the government to ease the situation.

Concerns mounted over the lack of food, water and shelter in the delta region and adjacent Yangon, where nearly a quarter of Myanmar's 57 million people live, as well as the spread of disease in a country with one of the world's worst health systems.

"Our biggest fear is that the aftermath could be more lethal than the storm itself," said Caryl Stern, who heads the U.N. Children's Fund in the United States.

The United States said it was giving $3 million to U.N. agencies to help with their efforts, up from an initial emergency contribution of $250,000. The European Union will provide $3.1 million, according to a statement released by Slovenia, president of the 27-nation bloc.

China is providing $1 million in aid, including relief materials worth $500,000, to help with disaster relief and rehabilitation efforts, a spokesman said.

But the United States and France complained about Myanmar's reluctance to accept direct aid.

President Bush called on Myanmar's military junta to allow the United States to help with disaster assistance, saying the U.S. already has provided some assistance but wants to do more.

"We're prepared to move U.S. Navy assets to help find those who have lost their lives, to help find the missing, to help stabilize the situation. But in order to do so, the military junta must allow our disaster-assessment teams into the country," Bush said.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said France minimized its aid to about $309,000. He said Myanmar officials are willing to accept aid but insist on distributing it themselves, which he said was "not a good way of doing things."

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Navy has three ships in the Gulf of Thailand — the USS Essex, the USS Juneau and the USS Harpers Ferry — preparing to participate in an annual exercise with Thailand's naval forces.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said two aircraft carriers — the USS Kitty Hawk and the USS Nimitz — as well as the USS Blue Ridge, are also within reach of Myanmar.

The Myanmar military, which regularly accuses the United States of trying to subvert the regime, is unlikely to allow a U.S. military presence in its territory.

But reflecting the seriousness of the crisis, the government has appealed for foreign aid and also announced Tuesday that it is delaying a crucial constitutional referendum in the hardest-hit areas.

State radio said Saturday's vote on a military-backed draft constitution would be delayed until May 24 in 40 of 45 townships in the Yangon area and seven in the wider delta.

The arrival in Myanmar in the coming days and weeks of a ramped-up U.N. presence and dozens of humanitarian groups could tax the system on several counts, analysts said.

For one thing, there are huge logistical problems in an impoverished country with an inflexible government and most resources tightly controlled by the military. It's also unclear whether the regime has enough trusted military officials with language abilities to handle and oversee the aid groups.

Moreover, many of the affected areas are strongholds for opposition groups that have been fighting for independence.

After days of little military presence in the streets, soldiers were out Tuesday clearing massive felled trees with power saws and axes and lifting debris into trucks.

State television played up the effort, showing images of a government truck distributing water, though residents said they hadn't seen any water trucks around the city.

While residents of Yangon struggled to clear away the rubble, the Irrawaddy delta was cut off.

Images on state television Tuesday showed mangled trees and electricity poles sprawled across roads as well as roofless houses.

State radio said most of the more than 22,000 dead, as well as the 41,000 missing, were in the densely populated Irrawaddy delta, home to 6 million people. It said 671 were killed in the Yangon area. Brig. Gen. Kyaw San, the information minister, said most fatalities were caused by tidal waves.

The death toll is the highest from a natural disaster in Southeast Asia since the tsunami of December 2004 killed 229,866 people in Indonesia, Thailand and other parts of Southeast and South Asia.

As the cyclone came bearing down on Myanmar late Friday, television broadcasts warned of 120 mph winds and 12-foot storm surges. But electricity is so spotty in Myanmar that few households, especially in the poor rural areas that were worst hit, were aware of the warnings.

Richard Horsey, Bangkok-based spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid, noted the closest airport to the Irrawaddy delta is in Yangon.

"The biggest problem will be to reach the affected areas. There will be a huge logistical problem," he said, adding that "for remote areas, assessment teams ... will need to go by helicopters and boats."