By KUNA,
London : Aid has started to trickle through to the survivors of the Myanmar (Burma) cyclone disaster but many more supplies are urgently needed if a disease epidemic is to be avoided, charities said here Saturday.
The charities have been warning of a disease epidemic of “apocalyptic proportions” due to delays in supplies getting through to those in need.
They accused the country’s ruling military junta of delaying crucial relief work needed to help the survivors of last Saturday’s cyclone that killed an estimated 100,000 people.
The UK Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), an umbrella group of aid agencies, said today that blockages and delays that had initially hampered the rescue efforts were now slowly being removed.
Matthias Schmale, international director at the British Red Cross, said, “To date, we have not been obstructed in our efforts to bring in key personnel and relief items to affected areas. But it is true that it is frustratingly slow and too little in scale.” A DEC spokeswoman added, “We do think it’s slightly more positive today. A lot of the aid organisations are now in place, aid is going in slowly,. It’s certainly not a flood but it is better than it was.” The Burmese state media has said that 23,335 people have died and a further 37,019 are missing following the devastating cyclone which deluged and submerged vast swathes of the Irrawaddy delta, but aid agencies expect the death toll to rise to in excess of 100,000.
Large tracts of the remote eastern section of the delta have still not been reached and the aid agencies are now focusing their efforts on reaching these areas to assess the damage.
British charity Save the Children said their staff on the ground in Burma had distributed aid to more than 70,000 cyclone survivors, but spokeswoman Miss Kathryn Rawe, speaking from Bangkok, Thailand, said there were growing concerns that further rain storms were forecast to hit Burma next week.