Myanmar junta keeps massive international aid effort on hold, denies visas to volunteers

Hungry crowds of cyclone survivors stormed a few shops that opened in Myanmar's devastated Irrawaddy delta Wednesday, as the military-ruled country's visa restrictions hampered international aid efforts.

Little relief reached the people in the worst-hit western region, even as corpses drifted in salty flood waters after the weekend disaster that killed more than 22,000 people and left an estimated 1 million homeless.

Internal U.N. documents obtained by The Associated Press showed growing frustrations at foot-dragging by the ruling junta, which has kept the impoverished nation isolated for five decades to maintain its iron-fisted control.

"Visas are still a problem. It is not clear when it will be sorted out," said the minutes of a meeting Wednesday of the U.N. task force coordinating relief for Myanmar in Bangkok, Thailand.

Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for U.N. relief efforts in Geneva, said the U.N. received permission to send nonfood supplies and that a cargo plane was being loaded in Brindisi, Italy, but that it might be two days before it leaves.

The U.N. is trying to get permission for its experts to accompany the shipment, Byrs said. She said U.N. staff in Thailand were also awaiting visas so they could enter Myanmar to assess the damage.

Some aid workers have told the AP that the government wants the aid to be distributed by relief workers already in place, rather than through foreign staff brought into the country.

Myanmar-based aid groups were distributing essential relief supplies in the region, said Richard Horsey, Bangkok-based spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid.

This included water purification tablets, mosquito nets, plastic sheeting and basic medical supplies. But heavily flooded areas were accessible only by boat, with helicopters unable to deliver relief supplies there, he said.

"Basically the entire lower delta region is under water," Horsey told the AP in Bangkok. "Teams are talking about bodies floating around in the water," he said. This is "a major, major disaster we're dealing with."

Myanmar's state media said Wednesday that 22,980 people died and 42,119 went missing when Cyclone Nargis slammed into the country's western coast on Saturday. But Horsey predicted the number of fatalities could rise "dramatically."

On Wednesday, a few shops opened in the delta but were stormed by people, said Paul Risley, a spokesman for the U.N. World Food Program in Bangkok, quoting his agency's workers in the area.

"Fistfights are breaking out," he said.

Some villages were almost totally destroyed and vast rice-growing areas wiped out in the Irrawaddy delta, which is considered Myanmar's rice bowl.

"The most urgent need is food and water," said Andrew Kirkwood, head of the Save the Children aid group in Yangon. "Many people are getting sick. The whole place is under salt water and there is nothing to drink. They can't use tablets to purify salt water."

The group distributed food, plastic sheeting, cooking utensils and chlorine tablets to 230,000 people in the Yangon area, he said. Trucks were sent to the delta on Wednesday carrying rice, salt, sugar and tarps.

The WFP was getting ready to send 40 metric tons of relief material from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The World Health Organization will send 8.7 metric tons of emergency health kits on that flight.

India, Indonesia and China also sent some aid.

A Yangon resident who returned home from the area said people were drinking coconut water because of a lack of safe drinking water. He said many people were on boats using blankets as sails.

Local aid groups were distributing rice porridge, which people were receiving in dirty plastic shopping bags because all their kitchenware was lost, he said. The man spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution from authorities for talking to a foreign news agency.

In Yangon, which was also hit, many angry residents said they were given vague and incorrect information about the approaching storm and no instructions on how to cope when it struck.

City residents faced new challenges as markets doubled prices of rice, charcoal and bottled water.

At a market in the suburb of Kyimyindaing, a fish monger shouted to shoppers: "Come, come the fish is very fresh."

But an angry woman snapped back: "Even if the fish is fresh, I have no water to cook it!"

Electricity was restored in a small portion of Yangon but most city residents, who rely on wells with electric pumps, had no water.

Vendors sold bottled water at more than double the normal price. Prices of rice and cooking oil also doubled.

Britain pledged US$9.8 million (euro6.4 million) and the U.S. offered more than US$3 million (euro1.9 million) in aid. U.S. President George W. Bush said Washington was prepared to use the U.S. Navy to help search for the dead and missing.

However, the Myanmar military, which regularly accuses the United States of trying to subvert its rule, was unlikely to accept U.S. military presence in its territory.

The U.S. Navy has three ships participating in an exercise in the Gulf of Thailand that could help in any relief effort. One of them, the USS Essex, has 23 helicopters aboard, including 19 that are capable of lifting cargo from ship to shore, as well as more than 1,500 Marines.

If allowed, some of the helicopters could go first as the Essex would take four days to reach Myanmar, one U.S. official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because that was still in the planning stages.

The cyclone came a week before a key referendum on a proposed constitution backed by the junta.

State radio said Saturday's vote would be delayed until May 24 in 40 of 45 townships in the Yangon area and seven in the Irrawaddy delta. But it indicated the balloting would proceed in other areas as scheduled.

Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. Its government has been widely criticized for suppressing pro-democracy parties such as the one led by Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has been under house arrest for more than 12 of the past 18 years.

At least 31 people were killed and thousands more were detained in September when the military cracked down on peaceful protests led by Buddhist monks and democracy advocates.