YANGON, Myanmar - Another powerful storm headed toward Myanmar’s cyclone-devastated delta, where so little aid has reached that the United Nations warned on Wednesday of a “second wave of deaths” among an estimated 2 million survivors.

But Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said Myanmar officials told him they were in control of the relief operations and don't need foreign experts in the Irrawaddy delta area.

The area was pulverized by Cyclone Nargis on May 3, with the Red Cross estimating on Wednesday the toll will be between 68,833 and 127,990.

The government, for its part, have given a toll of least 34,273 dead and 27,838 missing.

An estimated 2 million survivors of the storm are still in need of emergency aid. But U.N. agencies and other groups have been able to reach only 270,000 people so far.

The military regime has barred foreign aid workers from travelling to the delta since Nargis roared ashore.

The Myanmar junta guaranteed that there were no disease outbreaks and no starvation among the survivors, Samak told reporters after returning from Myanmar’s main city of Yangon, where he met with his counterpart, Prime Minister Lt. Gen. Thein Sein.

Myanmar did not want any foreign aid workers because they “have their own team to cope with the situation,” Samak said.

Bottlenecks, poor logistics, limited infrastructure and the military government’s refusal to allow foreign aid workers have left most of the delta’s survivors living in miserable conditions without food or clean water. The government’s efforts have been criticized as woefully slow.

“The government has a responsibility to assist their people in the event of a natural disaster,” said Amanda Pitt, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for Humanitarian Affairs.

“We are here to do what we can and facilitate their efforts and scale up their response. It is clearly inadequate and we do not want to see a second wave of death as a result of that not being scaled up,” she said.

New storm brewing
The U.S. military’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said there is a good chance that “a significant tropical cyclone” will form within the next 24 hours and head across the Irrawaddy delta area.

The news of a second cyclone was not broadcast by Myanmar’s state-controlled media. But Yangon residents picked up the news on foreign broadcasts and on the Internet.

“I prayed to the Lord Buddha, ‘please save us from another cyclone. Not just me but all of Myanmar,”’ said Min Min, a rickshaw driver, whose house was destroyed in Cyclone Nargis. Min Min, his wife and three children now live on their wrecked premises under plastic sheets.

“Another cyclone will be a disaster because our relief center is already overcrowded. I am very worried,” said Tun Zaw, 68, another Yangon resident who is living in a government relief center.

Prof. Johnny Chan, a tropical cyclone expert with City University of Hong Kong, said the new cyclone would likely not be as severe as Nargis because it is already close to land, and cyclones need to be over sea to gain full strength.

“There will be a lot of rain but the winds will not be as strong,” he told The Associated Press

Survivors join in rescue effort
Soldiers have barred foreign aid workers from reaching cyclone survivors in the hardest-hit areas, but gave access to an International Red Cross representative who returned to Yangon on Tuesday.

Bridget Gardner, the agency’s country head, described tremendous devastation but also selflessness, as survivors joined in the rescue efforts.

“People who have come here having lost their homes in rural areas have volunteered to work as first aiders. They are humanitarian heroes,” said Gardner.

Gardner’s team visited five locations in the Irrawaddy delta. In one of them, they saw 10,000 people living without shelter as rain tumbled from the sky.

“The town of Labutta is unrecognizable. I have been here before and now with the extent of the damage and the crowds of displaced people, it’s a different place,” Gardner was quoted as saying in a statement by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

In Labutta and elsewhere she said volunteers were giving medical aid to hundreds of people a day even though “they have no homes to go back to when they finish.”

Some survivors of Cyclone Nargis were reportedly getting spoiled or poor-quality food, rather than nutrition-rich biscuits sent by international donors, adding to suspicions that the junta may be misappropriating foreign aid.

Image: Myanmar Red Cross volunteers
IFRC via AFP - Getty Images
Myanmar Red Cross volunteers work in their temporary headquarters in Bogalay, Myanmar.

The military, which has ruled since 1962, has taken control of most supplies sent by other countries, including the United States, which began its third day of aid delivery Wednesday as five more giant C-130 transport planes loaded with emergency supplies headed to Myanmar.

Lt. Col. Douglas Powell, a spokesman for what has been dubbed operation Caring Relief, said a total of 197,080 pounds of provisions have been sent into Myanmar on the eight U.S. military flights that have been cleared to go.

Most of the provisions have been blankets, mosquito nets, plastic sheets and water.

As the U.S. military’s effort to expand its relief effort appeared to make major headway, Myanmar also agreed to attend an emergency meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers next week to discuss problems in getting foreign aid the country, Asian diplomats said Wednesday.

Diplomats from the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Myanmar, were crafting the agenda for the meeting to be held Monday in Singapore, said two Manila-based Southeast Asian diplomats knowledgeable about preparations for the gathering.

Singapore, which currently heads the ASEAN bloc, organized the meeting after getting a nod from Myanmar, which has committed to sending its foreign minister, according to one of the diplomats. Both spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media.

Joining other individual and institutional donors around the world, Hollywood stars have donated $250,000 for survivors through Save the Children. The global aid agency said Not On Our Watch, a nonprofit group founded by actors George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and others, has also pledged more donations over a one-year period.

‘This is terrible’
Getting to the worst-affected areas was getting more and more difficult, and the impending storm was expected to compound the misery of the survivors.

“They are already weak,” said Pitt, the U.N. spokeswoman. A new storm will impact “people’s ability to survive and cope with what happened to them ... this is terrible.”

U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had expressed concern that aid was being diverted to non-cyclone victims, but so far there was no evidence.

CARE Australia’s country director in Myanmar, Brian Agland, said members of his local staff brought back some of the rotting rice being distributed in the devastated Irrawaddy delta.

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In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is the king
- Nas

I don't understand why there is so much fear by the military to keep aid away? A destabalizing situation will make people rebel against the junta since they can't provide the most basic need that a government should provide: safety.

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In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is the king
- Nas

American aid usually has conditions. Although I despise the govt. in Burma I can see where they are coming from. They are desperate to maintain power and skeptical of a govt. that recently criticised them that is now offering help. They prefer China's help. China's help doesn't have conditions. This is a real indicator of how things have become. Usually countries would've asked for American help but it would seem a new pole is arising threatening our sphere of influence.

It's quite funny though, American planes are flying over the country just dropping aid, lol

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I'll tell you this no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn
Nothing to kill or die for and no religion too
You may bury my body, down by the highway side,
so my old evil spirit can get a Greyhound bus and ride.

SOURCE?

Link?

or is this hyperbole?

To my knowledge the American military is respecting Burmese air space and requesting permission.

Sorry my bad, too many beers lol

Your right, I read that the US is seriously considering dropping aid unauthorised.

__________________
I'll tell you this no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn
Nothing to kill or die for and no religion too
You may bury my body, down by the highway side,
so my old evil spirit can get a Greyhound bus and ride.

The U.S. isn't the only one getting turned away, the Burmese govt is too afraid to let foreigners in because they feel that foreigners will bring and teach outside ideas and perspective to there citizens. They have been like this since 1962.

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In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is the king
- Nas

Fear and Loathing's analysis is correct. I have written more extensively on other threads relating to the situation in Burma about these precise issues.

America should drop guns from the air then the burmese will collect them and kill there leaders!

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Left sucks! so visit our new group! Obama is a Joke!

American 'aid' is NEVER just aid, it ALWAYS had conditions. The Martial plan was only given to right-wing governments who were anti-Soviet and brutally repressed any Communists in their own people, the same is the case here.

The US offered aid to all countries through the Marshall Plan. Czechoslovakia and Poland expressed great interest in the aid while Romania and Hungary were interested. It was the Soviet Union that forbid the countries from taking the aid. And don't get off all high and mighty on the USSR, need I remind you of the Brezhnev Doctrine?

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