Myanmar Cyclone Casualties Nearly 78,000

Two weeks after the deadly cylone struck, military rulers have admitted that nearly 78,000 people have been killed and another 56,000 are still missing. The United Nations said the relief supplies sent into Burma by the international community remain far below the needs of up to 2.5 million victims of the cyclone But Burma's prime minister Thien Sein stated that the relief phase was now finished, and rebuilding was beginning, saying: "We have already finished our first phase of emergency relief.

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The UK prime minister said the disaster was becoming a "man-made catastrophe" and the military regime should be held to account for its "negligence". Air-drops had not been ruled out, but could be counter-productive, he said. There is growing condemnation of Burma's response to the 2 May cyclone, said to have killed at least 78,000.

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Heavy rains are now hampering relief efforts, making it hard to deliver aid. More than a hundred doctors from neighbouring countries have arrived in the devastated region. The United Nations is warning that a lack of fresh water may lead to the outbreak of disease.

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France has sent an uninvited ship loaded with aid to the international waters off Myanmar, causing the U.N. ambassador from the Southeast Asian nation on Friday to accuse the French of dispatching a "warship." The desire of outside countries to assist survivors of the cyclone that hit two weeks ago has clashed with Myanmar's military leadership's insistence on controlling the distribution of aid.

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Google THE French envoy to the United Nations has warned that Burma risked committing "crimes against humanity" in its failure to allow foreign aid in to help victims of the devastating cyclone. Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert said he appealed during a UN General Assembly session for the United Nations "to finally react strongly, very strongly" to the Burma military regime's defiance, two weeks after Cyclone Nargis.

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Myanmar state television reported on Friday night that the country's official death toll from Cyclone Nargis has risen sharply...Two weeks after the powerful cyclone swept through the country, more than 55,900 people remain missing, including 58 government employees.

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Torrential rain lashed survivors of Cyclone Nargis on Friday as Myanmar's junta raised its toll sharply to more than 133,000 people dead or missing, putting the disaster on a par with a 1991 cyclone that killed 143,000 in neighboring Bangladesh. In a shocking update to a count that had consistently lagged international aid agency estimates, state television said 77,738 people were dead and 55,917 missing after the May 2 storm in the military-ruled country formerly known as Burma.

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Isolated from the outside world by a military regime ruthlessly determined to control the flow of international aid, and battered again by torrential downpours, the stranded victims of Myanmar's cyclone disaster are succumbing to hunger, disease and despair.

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Long before this tragedy, Myanmar was known as a notoriously reclusive country...Andrew Kirkwood works for Save the Children and is one of only a handful of Canadians on the ground in Myanmar. "We were told very clearly that at this stage they do not want international aid workers in the field," he said. "We know there are a lot of areas we haven't hit, and that is worrisome."

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Burma this week finally allowed a disaster assessment team from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to travel to the Irrawaddy Delta region, where more than 100,000 people are dead or missing and more than 2 million lost their homes. Washington. "We have to demonstrate that we are relevant, that we can help each other, that we can solve the problems that occurred in our landscape."

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