YANGON—Burma's military government came under pressure Wednesday to open its borders to more international help after a devastating cyclone that a U.S. diplomat said may have killed more than 100,000 people.
The United States, a vocal critic of the military junta that has ruled the former Burma (which it renamed "Myanmar,") for more than four decades, said humanitarian access should not be a political matter.
"What remains is for the Burmese government to allow the international community to help its people. It should be a simple matter. It is not a matter of politics," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters in Washington.
The top U.N. humanitarian official urged Burma to waive visa restrictions for aid workers, which he said were slowing efforts to bring in disaster relief experts and supplies to help an estimated one million people affected by Cyclone Nargis.
The cyclone slammed into coastal towns and villages in the rice-growing Irrawaddy delta southwest of Yangon Saturday. Witnesses reported entire villages destroyed and people clinging to trees in a desperate fight for survival.
Limited international aid has trickled in and the military junta's own aid operation has moved up a gear with some helicopter drops into the region, but land convoys were nowhere to be seen, said a Reuters witness in the delta.
State Burma radio and television, the main official sources for casualties, reported a death toll of 22,980 with 42,119 missing and 1,383 injured in Asia's most devastating cyclone since a 1991 storm in Bangladesh killed 143,000.
The U.N. humanitarian official said the death toll could rise "very significantly." A U.S. diplomat was more specific.
"The information that we're receiving indicates that there may well be over 100,000 deaths in the delta area," Shari Villarosa, the charge d'affaires of the U.S. embassy in Burma, told reporters on a conference call from Yangon.
She said the 100,000 figure was not a confirmed death toll but was based on estimates by an international non-governmental organization, which she declined to identify.
She said recent estimates by the Burma government put the death toll at 70,000 deaths, mainly in the delta area.
Political analysts and critics of 46 years of military rule say the cyclone may have long-term implications for the junta, which is even more feared and resented since last September's bloody crackdown on Buddhist monk-led protests.
'Responsibility To Protect'
With the delta virtually cut off and frustration growing among aid agencies and governments, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner suggested invoking a U.N. "responsibility to protect" clause without waiting for the junta's approval.
John Holmes, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said that would be premature. "We are having useful and constructive discussions with the authorities of Burma," he said at the United Nations.
"It is moving in the right direction, we want it to move much faster clearly, but I'm not sure it would help at this moment at least to embark on what could at least be seen by some people as a confrontation," Holmes told reporters.
Richard Horsey of the U.N. Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told Reuters in Bangkok that 5,000 square km (1,930 square miles) of the delta were under water.
"With all those dead mostly floating in the water at this point you can get some idea of the conditions facing the teams on the ground. It's a major logistical challenge," he said.
Storm surges hit at night when people were sleeping "and just inundated them, or swept them out to sea," Villarosa said. "The government officials told us 95 percent of the buildings in the delta area are gone or have collapsed."
Thailand, China, India and Indonesia were flying in relief supplies and the U.N. World Food Program said it had sent four planes with aid that were expected to arrive on Thursday.
Visa Delays
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Burma do more to facilitate international aid.
Even relief workers of the United Nations, which has a presence in the diplomatically isolated Southeast Asian country, were awaiting visas five days after the cyclone struck with 190 kph (120 mph) winds.
Holmes said four Asian U.N. officials who do not need visas because of their nationality had been cleared to go as part of an initial assessment team but as many as 100 U.N. staff from various agencies were still waiting. He said they had not been refused visas, but the process was taking too long.
Holmes urged Burma to waive visa requirements and customs clearance for aid supplies, noting that similar waivers were granted by Pakistan and Iran after earthquakes there.
Water purification tablets, plastic sheeting, basic medical kits, bed nets and food were priorities, U.N. officials said.
Holmes said 24 countries had pledged $30 million and he expected more to be offered after the U.N. sets out its priorities and target for aid in a flash appeal Friday. The U.N. emergency relief will contribute at least $10 million.
At Yangon airport, a Reuters photographer on a Thai military plane said two Indian and one Chinese transport plane with tents and construction materials had also landed.
Debris and fallen trees at the airport had been cleared, but paddy fields around the city were still flooded.
A doctor in the town of Labutta told Australian radio that people were clinging to trees to survive. Entire villages were virtually destroyed, reports from the delta said.
"All the victims were brought to the town and I asked them, 'How many of you survived?' and they said about 200, 300," Aye Kyu told Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "Then I asked them, 'How many people in your area?' They said about 5,000."
In one town alone, Bogalay, at least 10,000 people were killed, according to a town-by-town list of casualties and damage announced by the reclusive military government.
The United Nations recognised in 2005 the concept of "responsibility to protect" civilians when their governments could or would not do it, even if this meant intervention that violated national sovereignty.
France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert asked the Security Council to take a stand on the crisis by calling for a humanitarian briefing and issuing a statement. Diplomats said China, Russia, Vietnam and South Africa were opposed, arguing it has nothing to do with peace and security.
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