U.N. supplies land in Myanmar
YANGON, Myanmar — Relief supplies from the United Nations began arriving in Myanmar today, but U.S. military planes loaded with aid for cyclone victims were still denied access by the country's isolationist regime.
The junta also continued to stall on visas for U.N. teams seeking entry to ensure the aid is delivered to the victims amid fears that lack of safe food and drinking water could push the death toll above 100,000.
Two airplanes carrying high-energy biscuits, medicine and other supplies arrived in Yangon, and two others were to follow, U.N. officials said. The planes had waited for the last two days while the world body negotiated with the military regime to allow the material into the Southeast Asian nation.
In Yangon, the roof of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was blown off and she was living in the dark after the electricity connection to her dilapidated lakeside bungalow was snapped in the cyclone, a neighbor said.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate is using candles at night since she has no generator in her home, where she is being held under house arrest, said the neighbor, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
U.S. Ambassador to Thailand Eric John told reporters that U.S. and Thai authorities earlier believed they had permission from Myanmar to land U.S. military C-130s. But Myanmar officials later made it clear that this was not the case.
John said it was not clear if they had reversed an earlier decision or if there was a misunderstanding.
Thailand Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej offered to negotiate on Washington's behalf to persuade the junta to accept U.S. aid.
The U.S. military, meanwhile, sent more humanitarian supplies and equipment to a staging area in Thailand. A C-17 transport plane with water and food landed today, joining the two C-130s in place, Air Force spokeswoman Megan Orton said at the Pentagon. Another C-130 loaded with supplies was on its way, she said.
The Navy also has three ships participating in an exercise in the Gulf of Thailand that could help in any relief effort — the USS Essex, the USS Juneau and the USS Harper's Ferry — but Navy officials said they are still in a holding pattern.
The Essex is an amphibious assault ship with 23 helicopters aboard, including 19 that are capable of lifting cargo from ship to shore, as well as more than 1,500 Marines.
Myanmar's generals, traditionally paranoid about foreign influence, issued an appeal for international assistance after the storm struck Saturday. They have since dragged their feet on issuing visas to relief workers even as survivors faced hunger, disease and flooding.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband asked Myanmar's junta to "lift all restrictions on the distribution of aid." The U.N. also called the government to let aid and aid workers in.
"It is imperative at this point that they do open up and allow a major international relief effort to get under way," Richard Horsey, who coordinates U.N. humanitarian aid out of Bangkok, told AP Television News.
The Association of Southeast Nations appealed to the international community to keep sending aid through Thailand.
"Please keep the help coming, keep the contributions coming, and if you have to, go to Thailand, park there and wait for redistribution from there," said ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan.
Myanmar's state media said Cyclone Nargis killed at least 22,980 people and left 42,119 missing, mostly in the hardest-hit Irrawaddy delta. Shari Villarosa, who heads the U.S. Embassy in Yangon, said the number of dead could eventually exceed 100,000 because safe food and water were scarce and unsanitary conditions widespread.
U.N. officials estimated as many as 1 million people were left homeless in Myanmar, which also is known as Burma.
Entire villages in the delta were still submerged from the storm, and bloated corpses could be seen stuck in the mangroves. Some survivors stripped clothes off the dead. People wailed as they described the horror of the torrent swept ashore by the cyclone.
