By Aung Hla Tun
YANGON (Reuters) - Diplomats witnessed "huge" devastationin the Irrawaddy delta on Saturday and the toll of dead andmissing from the cyclone rose above 133,000 people, making itone of the most damaging to hit Asia.
With about 2.5 million people clinging to survival in thedelta, and the military government refusing to admitlarge-scale outside relief, disaster experts say the death tollfrom Cyclone Nargis which struck on May 2 could risedramatically.
"It was useful to catch the magnitude of the devastation.It's huge," Bernard Delpuech, head of the European CommissionHumanitarian Office in Yangon, said of the trip.
"For the recovery you can't expect it to be six months or ayear. It will take longer," he told Reuters from Yangon, theformer Rangoon.
Helicopters took some 60 to 70 diplomats split in threegroups to different parts of the delta, where Nargis struckwith 120 mph (190 kmh) winds and a 12-foot (3.5 metre) wall ofwater.
The itineraries were arranged by the Myanmar government,under fire for refusing to allow significant numbers of foreignaid workers and major international aid operations. Thegenerals running the country say they have things in hand.
"The purpose was to show the situation was under control.Where we were they didn't hide anything but of course theyselected the places we visited," Delpuech said.
In the last 50 years, only two Asian cyclones have exceededNargis in terms of human cost -- a 1970 storm that killed500,000 people in neighbouring Bangladesh, and another thatkilled 143,000 in 1991, also in Bangladesh.
PLEA FOR MORE ACCESS
During the Saturday tour diplomats tried at every chance totell the accompanying Myanmar minister that the governmentshould provide more international aid access, Delpuech said.
He said the answer was: "Yes, they're willing, but theydon't want the people who will create more problems".
The insistence of the military, which has ruled uncheckedfor the last 46 years, on handling the bulk of aid distributionseemingly stems from fear an influx of helpful foreigners mightloosen its vice-like grip on power.
Myanmar state television said on Saturday media reportswere inaccurate in suggesting the government was not doingenough.
There have already been tens of millions of dollars spentand extensive aid deliveries and other efforts by the army,navy and air force, state television said.
However, near the town of Kunyangon this week columns ofmen, women and children stretched for miles alongside the road,begging in the mud and rain for scraps of food or clothing fromthe occasional passing aid vehicle.
Witnesses say many refugees are crammed into monasteriesand schools, fed and watered by local volunteers and privatedonors who have sent in clothes, biscuits, dried noodles andrice.
Buddhist monks play a major role.
"We have distributed over 100 tonnes of rice and more than3,000 tin roofing sheets so far. We are trying to distributemore," said the Venerable Nyanissara, who oversees a makeshiftrelief centre in the town of Kunthechaung.
There, robed and shaven-headed monks receive carefullymeasured quotas of food for their storm-hit home villages.
MORAL AUTHORITY
Given the monks' moral authority in the devoutly Buddhistsoutheast Asian nation, private donors are happy to see the mentake charge of goods brought in rickety trucks and boats.
The generals have admitted aid flights to Yangon, includingaround four daily from staunch critic the United States.
They have allowed in some foreign aid workers, especiallyfrom countries considered friendly. Medical teams from Thailandand India arrived on Saturday, state television said.
But aid agencies say only a fraction of needed relief getsto the inundated part of the delta, an area the size ofAustria, and more lives are at risk unless the situationimproves.
In a rare sign of agreement with international aidagencies, the junta on Friday night sharply raised the officialtoll from the disaster to 77,738 dead and 55,917 missing.
The news came on state TV, which has mainly shown footageof generals handing out food at model tented temporaryvillages.
People in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, are snapping upbootleg video discs of bloated corpses, desperate refugees andravaged villages to get a fuller picture of the situation.
"Myanmar television is useless," said a Yangon businessman.
Given the junta's virtual ban on foreign journalists andrestrictions on aid workers, independent assessment isdifficult.
As international frustration mounts, envoys fly in to tryto coax the junta out of its deep distrust of the outsideworld.
The latest is the U.N.'s top humanitarian official, JohnHolmes, expected to arrive in Yangon on Sunday.
A spokeswoman said Holmes will carry a third letter fromU.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to junta leader Than Shwe,who has repeatedly ignored Ban's requests for a conversation.
(Writing by Ed Cropley and Jerry Norton)
(For more stories on Myanmar cyclone follow the link toReuters AlertNet http:/www.alertnet.org)
