By Aung Hla Tun
YANGON (Reuters) - Heavy rains pelted homeless cyclonesurvivors in Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta on Tuesday, complicatingthe already slow delivery of aid to more than 1.5 millionpeople facing hunger and disease.
As more foreign aid trickled into the former Burma, criticsratcheted up the pressure on its military rulers to acceleratea relief effort that is only delivering an estimated tenth ofthe supplies needed in the devastated delta.
"The response of the regime in Burma to this crisis hasbeen absolutely callous and those paying the price of thiscallousness have been the long-suffering Burmese people,"Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told parliament.
An Australian air force plane landed in Yangon, Myanmar'smain city, with 31 tonnes of emergency supplies, a day afterthe first U.S. military aid flight arrived in a countryWashington has described as an "outpost of tyranny".
Two more U.S. flights arrived on Tuesday as part of a"confidence building" effort to prod Myanmar's reclusivegenerals into allowing a larger international relief operation11 days after the disaster left up to 100,000 dead or missing.
France, Britain and Germany called on Tuesday for the worldto deliver aid without the junta's agreement, using a littleused U.N. principle of the "responsibility to protect".
Myanmar state television said the official death toll hadrisen to 34,273 from nearly 32,000 and 27,838 were missing.
DISEASES
Tens of thousands of people throughout the delta arecrammed into Buddhist monasteries and schools after arriving intowns that were on the breadline even before the disaster.
Lacking food, water and sanitation, they face the threat ofkiller diseases such as cholera. Heavy tropical rains added totheir misery.
"Where I am now there's over 10,000 homeless people andit's pouring rain," Bridget Gardener of the International RedCross said during a rare tour of the delta by a foreign aidofficial.
While a steady stream of aid flights have landed in Yangon,only a fraction of the relief needed is getting to the deltadue to flooding and the junta's desire to keep most foreign aidand logistics experts either out of the country or in Yangon.
The World Food Programme said it was able to deliver lessthan 20 percent of the 375 tonnes of food a day it wanted tomove into the flooded delta.
Myanmar state television said six ships carrying 500 tonnesof supplies had left Yangon for the delta on Tuesday.
International relief organisations say their local staffare stretched to breaking point, while Medicins Sans Frontieressaid its workers faced "increasing constraints".
One Yangon businessman just back from a personal aidmission to Bogalay, a delta township where at least 10,000people were killed, said soldiers were appropriating aid.
"There are still some villages in the worst-hit areas thatnobody has got to," the man, in his late 30s, told Reuters.
"Around Bogalay, private donors are not allowed todistribute their assistance to the victims themselves. We hadto hand over what we had."
U.N. CRITICISM
The junta has welcomed "aid from any nation" but has madeit very clear it does not want outsiders distributing it.
At the United Nations in New York, Secretary-General BanKi-moon delivered his most critical comments to date.
"I want to register my deep concern -- and immensefrustration -- at the unacceptably slow response to this gravehumanitarian crisis," he told reporters on Monday.
"We are at a critical point," he said. "Unless more aidgets into the country very quickly, we face an outbreak ofinfectious diseases that could dwarf today's crisis."
With three U.S. and one French warship laden with aid andhelicopters steaming towards Myanmar, EU foreign policy chiefJavier Solana again raised the question of unauthorised aiddrops into the delta -- which could be seen as an act of war.
"We have to use all the means to help those people," hesaid. When pressed, he replied: "Whatever is necessary to helpthe people who are suffering".
France's junior minister for human rights Rama Yade toldreporters as EU development ministers' met to discuss emergencyaid for Myanmar, that the three EU powers would proposeimposing the aid to the U.N. Security Council, but acknowledgedthat they did not have unanimous support in the 27-nation EU.
Speaking after the first U.S. military aid flight toMyanmar on Monday, U.S. President George W. Bush condemned thejunta for failing to act more quickly to accept internationalhelp, saying "either they are isolated or callous".
"It's been days and no telling how many people have losttheir lives as a result of the slow response," he told CBSNews.
The storm raged through an area home to nearly half ofMyanmar's 53 million people, as well as its main rice-growingregion. About 5,000 sq km (1,930 sq miles) of land remain underwater.
Most of the casualties were killed by a 12-foot (3.5 metre)wall of water churned up by the cyclone's 190 kph (120 mph)winds.
(Additional reporting by Carmel Crimmins in Bangkok;Writing by Darren Schuettler; Editing by Ed Cropley)
