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UN says Myanmar too slow
12/05/2008 14:04 - (SA)
Yangon - The United States on Monday delivered its first aid flight to Myanmar, but the UN warned that bottlenecks meant relief supplies were not reaching most of the 1.5 million survivors of a massive cyclone.
The US military transport plane, laden with emergency supplies including equipment to provide clean drinking water, was permitted to land by the ruling junta, which has been condemned for stalling the disaster response.
"All of us are optimistic that this C-130 will be the first of many. The world has much to offer," US ambassador to Thailand Eric John said in neighbouring Thailand, where the plane was loaded.
The United States has offered a far broader relief effort in Myanmar, including navy ships and helicopters that could deploy in the Irrawaddy Delta hardest-hit by the May 3 storm, but so far the junta has declined.
The flow of international aid into Myanmar, which says 62 000 people are dead or missing, has increased in the past two days, but relief agencies say much more is needed to avert a humanitarian catastrophe.
The UN said that the relief operation was only at 10% of the level needed to bring water, food and supplies to desperate survivors, and that just 20 percent of the food required was making its way in.
"I would urge that we don't judge the success of this operation by flights arriving alone," said Richard Horsey, a spokesperson for the UN's humanitarian arm, said in Bangkok.
"There is a major challenge in getting goods out to the delta, in the bottlenecks moving goods out from Yangon," he told a news conference.
The military government said some parts of the disaster zone were still cut off 10 days after cyclone struck, and that authorities had not been able to reach people there to discover the extent of the damage.
Deeply suspicious of any outside influences that could undermine their total control, the generals reiterated that foreign specialists - who have the expertise to oversee the relief effort - would not be put in charge.
"Faster progress on this issue is crucial to the effectiveness of the response," said Catherine Bragg, the UN's deputy emergency relief co-ordinator.
"If we do not act now, and we do not act fast, more lives will be lost," she said.
Aid groups have insisted the regime does not have the capacity to direct the relief operation in the delta, where diarrhoea and other illnesses are starting to threaten survivors living in scenes of almost unimaginable despair.
"We have not got any aid from anyone," said Man Mu, a mother of five in one of the thousands of tiny delta villages that were pulverised by the storm. One of her children was swept away in the disaster.
"We only have the clothes we are wearing," she said. "We have lost everything."
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