By Aung Hla Tun
YANGON (Reuters) - Desperate survivors cried out for aid onThursday nearly a week after Cyclone Nargis killed up to100,000 people, as pressure piled up on Myanmar to throw itsdoors open to an international relief operation.
The United States was still awaiting approval fromMyanmar's junta to start military aid flights, but the U.N.food agency and Red Cross/Red Crescent said they have startedflying in emergency relief after some delays.
U.S. ambassador Eric John told a news conference in Bangkokthat the United States and Thailand had thought the Myanmargenerals had agreed to let a U.S military cargo plane fly insupplies.
But that turned out to be premature.
"We don't have permission yet for the C-130 to go in, but Iemphasise 'yet'" John said.
Approval for such a flight would be surprising given thehuge distrust and acrimony between the former Burma's generalsand Washington, which has imposed tough sanctions to try to enddecades of military rule.
Aid has barely trickled into one of the world's mostisolated and impoverished countries, although experts feared itwould be too little to cope with the aftermath of Nargis, whichleft up to 100,000 feared dead and one million homeless.
Witnesses saw little evidence of a relief effort under wayin the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta region.
"We'll starve to death, if nothing is sent to us," said ZawWin, a 32-year-old fisherman who waded through floating corpsesto find a boat for the two-hour journey to Bogalay, a townwhere the government said 10,000 people were killed.
"We need food, water, clothes and shelter," he told aReuters reporter.
AID PLANES ARRIVE
The storm pulverised the delta on Saturday with 190 kmwinds followed by a massive tidal wave that caused most of thecasualties and damage, virtually destroying some villages. Itwas the worst cyclone in Asia since 1991, when 143,000 peoplewere killed in neighbouring Bangladesh.
U.N. officials, who had earlier complained that an airliftof emergency supplies for the victims was being delayed, saidseveral cargo planes had now landed at Yangon's airport.
WFP spokesman Paul Risley in Bangkok said a Thai cargoplane delivered seven tons of high-energy biscuits and a U.N.chartered flight from Brindisi, Italy arrived in Yangon withwater, plastic sheeting, medical kits and other equipment.
He said one other charter flight in Bangkok was awaitinglanding clearance permission and a fourth flight was expectedto leave from Dubai on Thursday.
The Red Cross/Red Crescent confirmed its first aid planetook off from Kuala Lumpur, carrying six tonnes of sheltermaterials.
"It's a modest amount, but we hope once we established it,others will follow," an official said. "Another eight tonnes ofshelter goods will leave on a Thai commercial flight tonight."
Medicins sans Frontieres, which has 1,000 people inMyanmar, said it was ferrying aid supplies into the delta viatrucks and boats. It said it had been granted permission to flyin supplies.
"We are focusing on those still alive; 50 percent of themhave wounds and they are infected," MSF official Frank Smithiusin Myanmar told Australian radio. "Because of the winds andhigh water, people got smashed around."
Jean-Michel Grand, executive director of Action contra laFaim in London said the logistical obstacles were formidable.
"The roads are very poor or destroyed, and in many casesthere were no roads before. Everybody's looking at boats as analternative. It's going to be a massive logistics challenge.
The WFP's Risley said aid agencies normally expect to flyin experts and supplies within 48 hours of a disaster, butnearly a week after this cyclone, few international groups havebeen able to send reinforcements into Myanmar.
Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej failed to reachMyanmar's ruling generals on Thursday after U.S. PresidentGeorge W. Bush asked him to intervene with the junta toexpedite the international aid effort.
"We couldn't reach them because the communication towershave been damaged," Thai government spokesman WichianchotSukchotrat told reporters.
State media had reported a death toll of 22,980 with 42,119missing as of Tuesday, but diplomats and disaster experts saidthe real figure is likely to be much higher.
"The information that we're receiving indicates that theremay well be over 100,000 deaths in the delta area," said ShariVillarosa, charge d'affaires of the U.S. embassy in Myanmar.
(Additional reporting by Nopporn Wong-Anan in Bangkok;Writing by Bill Tarrant; Editing by Grant McCool)
