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May 14
Heavy rains head toward cyclone-devastated Myanmar

May 14, 2008
AP Wire

YANGON, Myanmar - Heavy rains and another potentially powerful storm headed toward Myanmar’s cyclone-devastated delta Wednesday. The U.N. warned that inadequate relief efforts could lead to a second wave of deaths.

A new estimate that the death toll may already be between 68,833 and 127,990 — considerably higher than the government’s latest official count of 38,491 dead, announced Wednesday night on state television.

The Red Cross said it made the estimate by adding figures gathered in affected areas by other aid groups and organizations and extrapolating the total.

An estimated 2 million survivors are still in need of emergency aid, but U.N. agencies and other groups have been able to reach only 270,000 people affected by Cyclone Nargis so far.

The junta told visiting Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, however, that it was in control of relief operations and doesn’t need foreign experts.

Samak went to a government relief center in Yangon and told reporters after returning to Bangkok that the junta has given him the “guarantee” that there are no disease outbreaks and no starvation among cyclone survivors.

“They have their own team to cope with the situation,” Samak said, citing Myanmar Prime Minister Lt. Gen. Thein Sein. “From what I have seen I am impressed with their management.”

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

Rain has been pounding the delta all week, and more is expected in the coming days, compounding the difficult task of moving supplies over ruined roads. It also poses significant health risks to survivors of the May 3 cyclone.

“The weather will exacerbate humanitarian conditions for the homeless, many of whom are living under an open sky,” said Elizabeth Griffin, a director of Catholic Relief Services from Baltimore. “Thankfully, no serious outbreaks of bacterial, water or mosquito-borne diseases have been reported, but this could change.”

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