Cyclone death toll may be 13,000

BURMA'S military junta believes up to 13,000 people died in the cyclone that ripped through the Irrawaddy delta at the weekend, triggering a massive international aid response for the pariah nation.

"The basic message was they believe the provisional death toll was about 10,000, with 3,000 missing," a Rangoon-based diplomat said after a briefing from the foreign minister, Nyan Win. "It's a very serious toll."

The scale of the disaster from Saturday's devastating cyclone drew a rare acceptance of outside help from the diplomatically isolated generals, who spurned such approaches after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

The official toll stood last night at 3,394 dead and 2,879 missing, but those figures cover only two of the five declared disaster zones, which together are home to 24 million people. United Nations officials say hundreds of thousands are without shelter or drinking water.

The casualty count has been rising quickly as the authorities reach hard-hit islands and villages in the Irrawaddy delta, the former "rice bowl of Asia" which bore the brunt of Cyclone Nargis's 120mph winds.

After getting a "careful green light" from the government, the UN said it was pulling out all the stops to send in emergency aid, such as food, clean water, blankets and plastic sheeting.

"The UN will begin preparing assistance now to be delivered and transported to Burma as quickly as possible," a spokesman for the World Food Programme (WFP) said.

The United States, which has imposed sanctions on the junta, said it had provided funds through the WFP and other aid groups. "It doesn't necessarily go directly to the government," a White House spokesman said. "But we're in the process of assessing what more we can do."

In Britain, the Foreign Office minister Meg Munn appealed to Burma's junta to act quickly to help those in need.

She said: "We are deeply concerned by the situation in Burma in the wake of Cyclone Nargis, and saddened by the terrible loss of life. The priority must be to mobilise aid to all those affected to avoid further suffering.

"We call on the Burmese regime to provide rapid support to its people and to accept international assistance."

India said two of its naval ships loaded with food, tents, blankets, clothing and medicine would sail for Rangoon soon, while Thailand sent a C-130 transport plane loaded with food and medicine to Rangoon after the airport reopened yesterday.

The UN office in Rangoon said there was an urgent need for plastic sheeting, water purification tablets, cooking equipment, mosquito nets, health kits and food. It said the situation outside Rangoon was "critical, with shelter and safe water being the principal immediate needs".

In Rangoon, food and fuel prices soared as aid agencies scrambled to deliver emergency supplies and assess the damage in the disaster zones. Clean water was scarce. Most shops had sold out of candles and batteries, and there was no word when power would be restored.

Long queues formed at the few open petrol stations. The price of a gallon of petrol has doubled on the black market, while egg prices have tripled since Saturday.

With the city plunged into almost total darkness overnight, security concerns mounted, and many shops sold their goods through partially opened doors or iron grilles. Looting was reported at several fresh food markets, where thieves took vegetables and other items.

"Without my daily earning, just survival has become a big problem for us," said Tin Hla, who normally repairs umbrellas at a roadside stand. With his shanty town house destroyed by the storm, Tin Hla said he has had to place his family of five in one of the monasteries that have offered temporary shelter to the many homeless.

His entire morning was taken up with looking for water and some food to buy, ending up with three chicken eggs that cost double the normal price.

Thin Thin, a grocery store owner, said: "The government misled people. They could have warned us about the severity of the coming cyclone so we could be better prepared."

Richard Horsey, of the UN disaster response office, said: "How many people are affected? We know that it's in the six figures. We know that it's several hundred thousand needing shelter and clean drinking water, but how many hundred thousand we just don't know."

In Rangoon, many roofs had been ripped off even sturdy buildings, suggesting damage would be severe in the shanty towns that lie on the outskirts of the city of five million people.

At the city's notorious Insein prison, soldiers and police killed 36 prisoners to quell a riot that started when inmates were herded into a large hall and started a fire to try to keep warm, a Thailand-based human rights group said.

Some in Rangoon complained that the 400,000-strong military was clearing only streets where the ruling elite lived but in most other areas were leaving residents, including Buddhist monks, to cope on their own.

Barry Michael Broman, a retired US state department official who was visiting Rangoon when the cyclone struck, said: "There are some army trucks out to clear the roads, but most of the work was done with a dah (knife] by the people. But some of these tree trunks are 4ft thick."

The junta leaders, bunkered in their new capital of Naypyidaw, 240 miles north of Rangoon, said Saturday's referendum on a new army-drafted constitution, which critics say will entrench the military, would go ahead.

A GOOD TIME TO VOTE?

BURMA'S junta will be hard pressed to convince the world that this Saturday's vote on a new and long-awaited constitution will be free and fair.

Logistically and politically, it couldn't be a worse time to ask voters to approve a draft constitution that critics say is designed to cement military rule.

"People are trying to rebuild their lives, find their families and friends. Nobody is interested in going to vote," said Aung Din, director of the US Campaign for Burma.

But Monique Skidmore, a Burma expert and professor at Australian National University, said: "They don't care if everyone votes or not. They care about the outcome, and I have no doubt they will manipulate the outcome in their favour."