Downpours in Myanmar as groups try to deliver aid

YANGON, Myanmar — New rains lashed this capital Thursday as Myanmar's military junta was only beginning to allow in foreign aid, leaving residents to pay exorbitant prices for bare essentials, bathe in the streets and stew in frustration.

Basic construction materials are unavailable.

"There are no nails to be found in Yangon," said Shari Villarosa, the chargé d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy here, who said the embassy imported chain saws from Thailand and Bangladesh. "The basics are not here."

Exploiting shortages caused by damaged roads and ports, profiteers have jacked up prices for supplies such as rice and corrugated sheeting. Back-street gas dealers were charging at least $10 a gallon, more than double the $4-a-gallon cost before Cyclone Nargis struck.

"For the first two or three days, people were in shock. Now anger has set in," said a local resident working with authorities in an effort to organize privately donated aid here in Myanmar's largest city.

After 46 years of military rule, the generals are used to brushing off discontent. But the cyclone delivered a hard blow to the junta's standing as well as to the rest of the country just days before the scheduled vote on a draft constitution that critics say is a ruse to enshrine military rule.

Neighboring India says it gave the regime two days' warning that a powerful cyclone was bearing down on Myanmar, also known as Burma. But Yangon residents say officials told them to expect winds of 40 mph. Instead, the storm hammered the southern region with 120-mph winds. Five days later, survivors got a hint of the coming monsoon season as downpours drenched battered homes and caused new flooding in some streets.

In the hardest-hit Irrawaddy River delta region, there were reports of fights over the scarce aid that's gotten through. A storm surge of sea water at least 12 feet high wiped out entire villages in the delta region, destroyed rice fields and left hundreds of thousands of people without shelter and little or no food and clean water. Some estimates put the cyclone's death toll at up to 100,000 people.

In central Yangon, building-supply merchants have increased the price more than sevenfold for corrugated iron sheets — from $4 to $30 — forcing many desperate people to take hundreds of dollars from meager savings just to stay dry.

"The bloodsucking businesspeople are crazy," complained a local resident.

Drivers desperate for gas have a choice: Sit for hours in lineups of cars that run for blocks or pay more than double on the black market.

The shortages and escalating prices are piling new pressure on the junta, less than a year after protests over its decision to lift fuel subsidies doubled the price of gas and sparked the worst unrest here in almost 20 years. The U.N. says at least 31 people were killed during the military regime's 2007 crackdown against what began as peaceful protests led by Buddhist monks.

Even before the cyclone struck, the junta had tightened already severe visa restrictions, limiting access to foreigners in the days before the scheduled vote. The junta is pressing ahead with the weekend referendum in most of the country but, after some hesitation, postponed it in areas devastated by the storm, including Yangon.

Some foreign aid began to trickle into the country by air Thursday. But many government and assistance groups continued to wait for permission to enter, and Myanmar's military regime has just four helicopters delivering emergency relief to a disaster zone.

At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that the U.S. military is poised to "save a lot of lives" in Myanmar and that the tragedy is being compounded by the junta's failure to allow American forces to provide assistance.

Gates said the U.S. military could not act without Myanmar government permission, but Ky Luu, director of the U.S. Agency for International Development's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, said that "anything that might have a positive impact is being looked at and is being discussed," including unauthorized airdrops.

Despite the barriers, the United Nations got two planes into the country Thursday, both chartered by the World Food Program.

Compiled from Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and New York Times reports.