Thai ties bind Myanmar cyclone relief

By Brian McCartan CHIANG MAI, Thailand - As the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bids to play a front-line role in the relief efforts in cyclone-hit Myanmar, members' respective bilateral policies towards the military regime promise to complicate and potentially undermine a collective and coherent group response.

Nowhere is that more clear than with Thailand, which has long maintained strong commercial ties with Myanmar's military government. Bangkok was notably the first capital to order the shipment relief supplies just days after the disaster first struck on May 2 and 3. Bangkok is now serving as willing host to a logistics

center for the United Nations and international humanitarian aid agencies responding to the cyclone.

United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon's request on May 19 to use Bangkok's former Don Muang international airport as a logistical hub for relief efforts was readily agreed to by the Thai government, although use had already begun a day earlier. Airport hangars have been provided to the UN's World Food Program to store supplies set for shipment to Myanmar, while the United States has used the large military airfield at U Tapao for its relief flights into Yangon.

Relief supplies are also being sent in convoys from the Thai border town of Mae Sot, sometimes in Thai Army trucks, and earlier this week a Thai medical team was the first foreign emergency team to gain access to the country. They have even been allowed to work in the Irrawaddy Delta region, the worst-hit area to which the junta has restricted foreign aid worker access.

Thailand has served as interlocutor between Myanmar's government and the UN and US to persuade the ruling junta to open its doors to international relief efforts. The reclusive government had earlier refused to allow in Western aid and still has not allowed Western aid workers into the disaster hit areas. While the Thai Air Force was able to broker a deal to let US Air Force relief flights in, other efforts have not been as successful.

But even while sending emergency supplies, providing support for relief efforts and acting as a liaison between the reclusive generals and the outside world, Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundarvej's government has simultaneously been busy cementing business deals and drawing up policies that threaten a harder line against the various exile opposition groups based in Thailand.

Samak eventually traveled to Myanmar on May 14, in a diplomatic bid to gain wider access for relief aid. During the visit, Myanmar state-run television showed clips of Samak being led around relief centers outside Yangon filled with blue tents, where he greeted refugees, checked out relief supplies and even watched television and joked with refugee children.

These spic-and-span camps have since been derided by opposition groups and critics of the junta's relief efforts as show pieces, while the great majority of the estimated two million people affected by the cyclone fight for their lives amid insufficient shelter, food and medicine. The World Food Program has estimated that only 30% of those affected by the disaster have been reached with any relief supplies.

Amid reports of theft of aid supplies, movement restrictions, and a general official neglect, Samak surprised many with his appraisal of the junta's relief efforts when he said on May 14 that "from what I have seen I am impressed with their management". He went on to say that the generals had given him a "guarantee" that there had been no outbreaks of disease or any starvation among cyclone survivors.

He notably failed to gain more access to disaster areas for the UN and other international relief organizations and said he was satisfied that the junta "have their own team to cope with the situation" and did not need foreign experts. Samak's counterintuitive remarks are hardly surprising given the commercial results of his previous trip to Myanmar in March 14 and a reciprocal official visit by Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein to Thailand on April 29, just days before the cyclone hit.

During his visit in March, Samak controversially agreed to disperse the remaining funds from a 4 billion baht ($125 million) EX-IM Bank of Thailand soft loan for communications equipment first initiated by ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's government. Thaksin is currently under investigation for alleged irregularities surrounding the government-to-government loan, which critics have said benefited his then family-owned company, the Shin Corporation.

The two governments also agreed to move ahead with the controversial Ta Sang dam project on the Salween River. Human rights and environmental organizations allege widespread abuses have clouded the project's development. Other infrastructure projects were also agreed, including the development of a deep sea port at Tavoy on the Andaman Sea in the Tenasserim Division of southeastern Myanmar.

During the April meeting, the port was further discussed as were agreements for Thai-invested contract farming of rubber and palm oil plantations in Myanmar. Thein Sein announced that around 100,000 rai (16 hectare) near Tavoy would be set aside as an industrial zone for energy related industries including petrochemicals and refineries.

Thailand is currently Myanmar's third-largest trading partner and largest energy importer and as of 2007 had paid-up investments of US$1.3 billion in the neighboring country, according to statistics from Thai Foreign Trade Department. Some contend, however, that those budding commercial deals have compromised Thailand's ability to play the role of honest broker between the junta and outside world in the wake of the cyclone crisis.

While on one hand playing an active role in providing relief to cyclone survivors, on the other Bangkok has made almost no public statements denouncing the regime's widely condemned, including by the UN and US, closed-door approach to accepting international aid and foreign relief workers. Instead, Samak's government took the rather tactless opportunity of an emergency cyclone-related meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the military regime for the Tavoy port and a separate road link project. The MoU was signed on May 19 by Thai foreign minister Noppadon Pattama and his Myanmar counterpart Nyan Win.

The big-ticket infrastructure project envisions expanding the current port at Tavoy and building a road linking it with Thailand's main port Laem Chabang outside of Bangkok. The expanded port will be able to accommodate larger vessels and cut days off the travel time of current shipments which must navigate around the Malay peninsula. Thai Transportation Minister Santi Prompat has said the port project will cost between 40 and 50 billion baht ($1.2-1.6 billion) and that another 100 billion baht ($3.1 billion) will be invested to develop the industrial zone.

According to the minister, PTT Plc, the Thai oil company has expressed interest in setting up an oil refinery in Myanmar and the construction of a pipeline to pump oil products to Thailand. Thai Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama says the project will take five to six years to complete, while a construction survey is expected to be completed by the end of this year. Once built, Pattama said private Thai firms will be granted a concession to manage the port on an initial five year extendable contract.

The MoU also covers the construction of a 130-kilometer road to connect Myanmar's Tenasserim Division with and Thailand's western Kanchanburi province.

The cyclone may have by default brought a temporary reprieve for Myanmar's ethnic and political opposition groups, refugees, internally displaced persons and the nongovernmental organizations which assist them, while the junta redirects its military focus on maintaining stability in cyclone-hit areas. That could change soon, however, if reports hold true that Samak agreed to Thein Sein to step up monitoring of opposition groups active in Thailand in exchange for closer commercial ties.

According to people familiar with the policy shift, Thai authorities will be tasked with cracking down on the insurgent Karen National Union, which operates in remote border areas. Meanwhile known political opposition group leaders are to be closely monitored and their movements severely restricted.

Exile-run media groups long based in Thailand would also be monitored to determine whether their coverage was harmful to relations between the two countries. Cross-border movements would also be severely curtailed under the new hard-line policy, including the flow of food, medicine and other supplies sent by local and international relief organizations to villagers displaced by the ongoing armed conflict between the junta and rebel groups.

With the huge international attention now drawn to Myanmar and the region in the wake of the cyclone, the policy has not yet come into force. Already a planned forced repatriation of newly arrived Karen refugees in Thailand's Mae Hong Son province was averted by the UNHCR, who alerted the Thai government to the likely bad press coverage that would result if it forced back refugees during a time of crisis. Several NGO workers noted, however, that this could all change once attention shifts elsewhere, which is already starting to happen with the earthquake disaster in China.

Thailand's Myanmar policy will certainly benefit from ASEAN's now assumed front-line role in dealing with the cyclone disaster. Each ASEAN member has agreed to provide 30 medical personnel, of which the Thai medical team was the first to arrive. The UN, however, says this international response is still not enough to stave off disease outbreaks and that the country's doors need to be opened to all foreign experts to avert a wider humanitarian crisis.

Critics say ASEAN's intervention will only allow Myanmar's military regime to hide behind the group's long held non-interference policy in member states' internal affairs. Myanmar's intransigence has in the past tried the 10-member group's patience, but with this recent agreement ASEAN has once again provided Myanmar a buffer from international criticism.

That's clearly the preference of Thailand and a benefit to Bangkok's business interests.

Brian McCartan is a Chiang Mai-based freelance journalist. He may be reached at brianpm@comcast.net.
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Myanmar Mourns Victims of Cyclone

BANGKOK — Myanmar began three days of national mourning for cyclone victims Tuesday, one day after agreeing to let its Southeast Asian neighbors help coordinate foreign relief assistance following the devastating Cyclone Nargis more than two weeks ago.
The supply of aid and the entry of relief workers from countries outside the Southeast Asian bloc will continue to be limited, said Singapore’s Foreign Minister George Yeo after an emergency meeting in Singapore of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, which includes Myanmar. But the move was taken as a signal that Myanmar’s reclusive military rulers had bowed somewhat to international pressure to allow more outside aid.

“We will establish a mechanism so that aid from all over the world can flow into Myanmar,” Mr. Yeo said.

“Myanmar is also prepared to accept the expertise of international and regional agencies to help in its rehabilitation efforts,” he said at a news conference Monday. Referring to the continuing limits on help from countries outside Southeast Asia, he said, “We have to look at specific needs — there will not be uncontrolled access.”

Since the cyclone, which struck Myanmar on May 3, Western nations and major relief groups have expressed alarm about Myanmar’s refusal to allow in large-scale shipments to the estimated 2.5 million victims in need of aid.

Myanmar has permitted a small flow of aid from several nations, including the United States. But relief officials say that this amounts to only 20 percent of the needed supplies. Without more aid, they say, many more people may yet die of disease and starvation.

In an echo of China’s public response to its earthquake disaster, Myanmar lowered flags on Tuesday to begin a three-day mourning period for the tens of thousands of people who lost their lives in the cyclone. China observed an official silence Monday for those who perished in the quake just one week earlier.

International pressure continued to build on Tuesday from several directions after the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, warned Monday that the ruling junta could be guilty of “crimes against humanity” if it continued to restrict the supply of aid into the country.

In New York, the human rights group Human Rights Watch Tuesday urged the United Nations Security Council to insist that “aid deliveries and humanitarian workers be given unfettered access” to Myanmar.

However, despite the international criticism, Myanmar’s foreign minister, Nyan Win, was quoted by Reuters as telling reporters that there had been no delay in accepting aid. “We always welcomed international aid,” he said.

After failing to receive a reply to letters and telephone calls made to the military junta, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations was to travel to Yangon, Myanmar’s main city, this week in hopes of meeting the country’s leader, Senior General Than Shwe.

On Sunday, state-run television broadcast the first public video images of the general since the cyclone, showing him meeting ministers involved in the rescue effort and touring some affected areas.

The United Nations under secretary for humanitarian affairs, John Holmes, toured the Irrawaddy Delta region by helicopter on Monday, according to Michèle Montas, Mr. Ban’s spokeswoman.

Mr. Yeo, the foreign minister, said Asean would work with the United Nations at the conference in Yangon on Sunday to coordinate aid deliveries. He said Myanmar had agreed to allow in medical teams from any of its nine neighbors in Asean. Thailand has already sent a contingent of more than 30 medical workers.

In addition, Myanmar has allowed in 50 medical workers from India. China’s official news agency, Xinhua, reported that a team of 50 Chinese medics arrived in Yangon on Sunday night.

Mr. Yeo said the Myanmar government estimated losses at $10 billion in the cyclone, which swept through the Irrawaddy Delta and Yangon.

Myanmar has raised its official death toll to 78,000. The United Nations and the Red Cross estimate that the toll is more than 100,000, and that it might be as high as 138,000.

Representatives of United Nations relief agencies said that some of their supplies were getting into Myanmar but that the authorities were still severely limiting delivery and withholding many visas from foreign relief experts.

The United Nations World Food Program said it had managed to deliver food aid to just 212,000 of the 750,000 people it thinks are most in need.

The United States and France have naval vessels just outside Myanmar’s territorial waters, and are prepared to deliver supplies directly to affected areas along the coast, but they have not received clearance from the government.

In a column in the French newspaper Le Monde, Mr. Kouchner said the United Nations should intervene by force, or would be guilty of cowardice in the eyes of the world.

“What we need to bring is hand-to-hand, heart-to-heart help, not donor conferences with all their bowing and scraping,” he said later in an interview with French radio. “In the meantime, people are dying.”

Mr. Yeo rejected the idea of delivery by force. “That will create unnecessary complication,” he said at the news conference. “It will only lead to more suffering for Myanmar’s people.”

Seth Mydans reported from Bangkok and Alan Cowell from Paris.
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Diplomatic Licence: France vs Britain helping Burma

By South-east Asia correspondent Karen Percy
Burma is mourning the dead from the cyclone which struck 18 days ago and claimed the lives of 133,000 people, lowering national flags to half mast.

The junta is starting to open up to the outside world, inviting the Association of South East Asian Nations to oversee an expanded aid effort.

It is also inviting representatives from 29 countries to visit and see the devastation for themselves, ahead of a donors' meeting that is scheduled for the weekend.

United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki Moon will arrive in Burma tomorrow and on Thursday he will be taken to the Irrawaddy Delta.

Already Burma has agreed to allow about 300 medical officers from ASEAN nations to enter to provide assistance.

The three-day mourning period is one of the first demonstrations of public grief since the tropical storm ravaged swathes of the nation 18 days ago, leaving about 2.4 million survivors in need of aid.

Flags in front of Rangoon's City Hall fluttered at half mast in the light morning rain, but there was no minute of silence or a public ceremony, leaving many people unsure how to mark the occasion.

"We didn't know about this news. How are we meant to show our grief for storm victims?" said Mya Mya, a 43-year-old flower seller who is sheltering in a public school after the storm destroyed her home.

"So far we haven't got any supplies from the government. We just got some supplies from private donors, so that's why I have to work for my family."

A 45-year-old taxi driver said: "I just found out this morning, but I also don't know how I am meant to show my grief."

- ABC/AFP
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Myanmar Agrees to Allow Aid Efforts by Neighbors

BANGKOK — Myanmar agreed Monday to let its Southeast Asian neighbors help coordinate foreign relief assistance for cyclone victims, bending to international pressure to allow in some more outside aid, Singapore’s foreign minister, George Yeo, said.

“We will establish a mechanism so that aid from all over the world can flow into Myanmar,” Mr. Yeo said, speaking at an emergency meeting in Singapore of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, which includes Myanmar.

“Myanmar is also prepared to accept the expertise of international and regional agencies to help in its rehabilitation efforts,” he told a news conference.

But he said the entry of aid workers from countries outside the Southeast Asian bloc would continue to be limited. “We have to look at specific needs — there will not be uncontrolled access,” Mr. Yeo said.

Since the cyclone, Western nations and major relief groups have raised alarm about Myanmar’s refusal to allow in large-scale relief shipments to the estimated 2.5 million survivors in need of aid after of the May 3 cyclone.

Myanmar has permitted a small flow of aid from several nations, including the United States, but relief officials say that this amounts to only 20 percent of the needed supplies. Without more aid, they say, many more people may die of disease and starvation.

Myanmar’s limited concession Monday came as international pressure continued to build from several directions, with the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, warning that the junta could be guilty of “crimes against humanity” if it continued to restrict the supply of aid into the country.

However, despite the international criticism, Myanmar’s foreign minister, Nyan Win, was quoted by Reuters as telling reporters that there had been no delay in accepting aid. “We always welcomed international aid,” he said.

After failing to receive a reply to letters and telephone calls made to the military junta, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was due to travel to Yangon this week in hopes of meeting the country’s leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe.

More than two weeks after the cyclone, General Shwe emerged from the isolated capital, Naypyidaw, and was shown on Myanmar state media for the first time in public Monday, meeting ministers involved in the rescue effort and touring some affected areas. In addition, the government announced that a three-day mourning period for the cyclone’s victims would begin Tuesday, The Associated Press reported. State television announced that the national flag would be flown at half-mast, beginning at 9 a.m.

State-run television showed General Shwe visiting a refugee camp, checking supplies, patting the heads of babies and shaking hands with survivors. Some of the cyclone victims, surrounded by neat rows of blue tents, clasped their hands and bowed as the general and other senior military officials walked by.

While accepting a limited amount of help, the government has insisted that it can handle the disaster on its own. The televised images were part of a broad propaganda campaign by the government to show its citizens and the outside world that it is in control of the situation.

Mr. Ban has called for a “high-level pledging conference” to deal with the crisis and for cooperation between the United Nations and Southeast Asian countries in overseeing aid delivery.

Mr. Yeo said that Asean would work with the United Nations to hold such a conference in Yangon on May 25 to coordinate aid deliveries. He said that Myanmar had agreed to allow in medical teams from any of its nine neighbors in Asean. Thailand has already sent a contingent of more than 30 medical workers.

In addition, Myanmar has allowed in 50 medical workers from India. China’s Xinhua news agency reported that a team of 50 Chinese medics arrived in Yangon Sunday night.

Mr. Yeo said the Myanmar government estimates losses at $10 billion in the cyclone, which swept through the Irrawaddy Delta and the country’s main city, Yangon, early on the morning of May 3.

Myanmar has raised its official death toll to 78,000.

Representatives of United Nations relief agencies said that some of their supplies were getting into Myanmar but that the authorities were still severely limiting delivery and withholding many visas from foreign relief experts.

The United Nations World Food Program said it had managed to deliver food aid to just 212,000 of the 750,000 people it thinks are most in need.

The United Nations and France have naval vessels just outside Myanmar’s territorial waters, and are prepared to deliver supplies directly to affected areas along the coast, but they have not received clearance from the government.

In a column in the French daily Le Monde, Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, said the United Nations should intervene by force, or be guilty of cowardice in the eyes of the world.

“What we need to bring is hand-to-hand, heart-to-heart help, not donor conferences with all their bowing and scraping,” he said in an interview with French radio. “In the meantime, people are dying.”

Mr. Yeo rejected the idea of delivery by force. “That will create unnecessary complication,” he said at the news conference. “It will only lead to more suffering for Myanmar people.”

On Saturday, Myanmar’s powerful neighbor and ally, China, said that other countries must show “due respect” to Myanmar in its handling of the disaster within its borders.

“Myanmar is a sovereign country,” said Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, at a briefing. “In the end, rescue and relief work will have to rely on the Myanmar government and people.”

Seth Mydans reported from Bangkok and Alan Cowell from Paris.

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Karel Vervoort: Air drops work. Burma needs them now

A proven method of releasing small, life-saving parcels can bring instant relief to the junta's neglected people, if the will is there
Sunday, 18 May 2008


It is 15 days since Cyclone Nargis hit Burma's Irrawaddy delta. Officially, 78,000 people have died (with another 55,000 missing), but NGOs estimate the figures will go a good deal higher yet. The UN admits it hasn't a clue how bad things are. Offers of help for the 2.5 million people affected have come from all over the world, and aid organisations have done their valiant best to bring assistance. The situation is dire. There is nothing more certain than that corpses lying around in stagnant water will give rise to disease, yet that is precisely what the few images we have been allowed to see have shown us.

Yesterday, one account, from 60 miles south of the capital, reported the dispossessed lining the road: "Without clothes or shoes, the thousands of men, women and children could only stand in the mud and rain of the latest tropical downpour, their hands clasped together in supplication at the occasional passing aid vehicle. Any car that did stop was mobbed by children, their grimy hands reaching through a window in search of bits of bread or a T-shirt." A Burmese volunteer commented: "The situation has worsened in just two days. There weren't this many desperate people when we were last here." Yet the backward-looking junta in Rangoon will accept aid only on its own terms, refusing to allow foreign humanitarian workers into the country and insisting – despite having little experience – on distributing aid itself. This is not mere protection of national sovereignty but, when thousands are dying as a direct result, a paranoia-inspired crime against humanity.

So what are we in the comfortable West to do? Either we can ignore the problem, an option made easier for our politicians by a comparative lack of public pressure (thanks to the media being largely shut out of Burma). Or our governments can press on, cynically or otherwise, seeking to persuade the Burmese government that we mean them no harm and only want to help, a state of affairs that has produced monotonously unchanging news bulletins for 10 days. Or we can be a great deal more proactive, and do something that might help the image of international interventionism, so damaged by the Iraq adventure. A more muscular approach might involve, say, air drops of food and other supplies.

Should we do it, and would it work? To the "should we?" question, the answer is almost certainly yes. Admittedly, without prior approval from the Burmese government, we would be invading its airspace, something not to be undertaken lightly. Would the (insufficient) aid that is getting through on the ground be cut off in retaliation? Would foreign planes be shot at by the military? Would the Chinese get drawn in, with the possibility of a quite unpredictable escalation? I will return to these concerns below. But the "should we?" question is answered by reference to the New York declaration in September 2005, marking the 60th anniversary of the United Nations. There it says that the international community, through the UN, "has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity". This "responsibility to protect", surely, makes the case unambiguously. The UN, as we know, is notoriously bad at reaching agreement, but the principle stands.

So to the question "would it work?" There are problems, admittedly, but none of them insurmountable. Dropping large quantities of anything at random can be ineffective, as well as dangerous to those on the ground. Aid can fall into the wrong hands – either black marketeers or those with military muscle.

But there is a way of distributing aid from the air in small packages and across a wide area that overcomes these problems. It allows individual parcels, weighing up to 5kg, to be scattered widely, minimising the chances of them being monopolised and misused. The idea is to provide survival packs, containing enough food, water, anti-malaria pills and water purification tablets to keep one person alive for one day.

Fifteen years ago, I gave a presentation in London on what I and my personal staff were doing within Nato to develop ways of using military assets in international disaster relief. I showed videos on the low-altitude bulk food gravity drop system that we were then using in Africa in the Belgian air force. At that meeting, a man called Geoff Woodford told me he had been thinking about another system of air-dropping food without parachutes, which he called Snowdrop. He told me that he had done initial tests in South Africa using C130 planes. Having seen a video of these tests, I immediately saw that his system would complement the one we had been using in the Belgian air force. He and I came to an agreement whereby we would develop the system together, without our paying him for the patent. There were a good few teething problems, but we carried on, anxious to find a way of dropping aid on top of people, on top of houses, without causing damage, even in complex emergencies. After 10 years of tests and investment, we had perfected a way of doing it. By 2003 it was declared "operational" in the Belgian air force by the Minister of Defence, and we had developed a system that could be used with any aircraft with a back door. It can drop from any altitude. We did it up to 12,000 feet, but it can be done up to 24,000 or even higher, provided there is oxygen for the crew. It can be done by stealth, at night.

The question is, why has Snowdrop (in which, I should say, I have no financial interest) not been used in Burma? In theory, if the food arsenals were in place, aid could have been dropped within 24 hours of the cyclone. One stumbling block is the lack of political will. We have been reluctant to offend the Burmese government, preferring the softly, softly approach of trying to persuade it to change its stripes. This morning, though, Gordon Brown said an air drop could not be ruled out, although the British would have precious few C130s available and have no experience with Snowdrop as perfected by the Belgians. Ludicrously and scandalously, there has been a dispute over the ownership of the patent. The United Nations World Food Programme began implementing its own Snowdrop programme, declaring on their website that they had devised the system themselves.

But herein lies the problem. Geoff Woodford subsequently filed a complaint insisting that the patent was his, and asserting ownership of the intellectual property. I know whose side I am on. Since then there has been an impasse. A highly effective system exists that should now be in use in Burma. Many actual "experts" do not even know of its existence. When John Holmes, the UN's humanitarian affairs officer, meets Burmese officials this week, the idea of such a drop should be on the table. Nobody doubts that aid is best provided with the collaboration of the host government, but a form of it can be given even without that co-operation. There is even a half-way house. A deal could be done with Rangoon to allow officials to fly on board the planes, as happened when we did a drop in Ethiopia. A member of the military checked everything that went on board, everything that was dropped, and knew exactly where we were flying. That would allay fears of military or covert action, and satisfy the Chinese. With imagination, these things can be done. We don't have to sit on our hands.

Major General Karel Vervoort is a former head of Training and Support Command in the Belgian Air Force
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UN warns another storm headed towards Myanmar

BANGKOK - The United Nations warned Friday that another storm was headed in the direction of Myanmar, which could complicate the slow-moving relief efforts from deadly Cyclone Nargis.

An estimated 1.5 million people have been left homeless by the disaster, which has killed tens of thousands, and the storm could pose serious risks to those battling disease, said Richard Horsey, a UN relief spokesman.


"Our meteorological people tell us there's likely to be fairly strong rainfall in the next seven days," he told AFP in neighbouring Thailand.

"That's going to be a big issue with unpaved roads. Heavy rainfall could complicate things for all those people going without shelter," Horsey said.

"If there's an epidemic of water-borne disease and a lack of shelter when a storm comes in ... if we have another storm coming into the delta, that's going to be a significant concern for all those people without shelter."

The country's military, which has run Myanmar with an iron fist for almost half a century, said earlier that it welcomed shipments of supplies but was "not ready" to let in foreign aid workers, including disaster experts.

"If we don't get this relief effort up to full scale quickly, there's significant risk of a second round of this disaster which could potentially kill as many people as the initial cyclone," Horsey said. - AFP/ir

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Another Cyclone Likely to Strike

5/6/2008

Dhaka: The Bangladesh meteorological office said on Sunday in its long-range forecast for May that at least one cyclonic storm may develop from the depressions in the Bay of Bengal this month.

The forecast was issued by the meteorological office after a meeting of experts.

The cyclone, if it forms in the Bay, would be called ABC, from a panel of code names selected for cyclones in the Bay of Bengal this year, a Bangladesh senior meteorologist and cyclone expert said.

Cyclone Nargis struck the Burma delta earlier this month and may have killed as many as 15,000 people. After Nargis, the meteorological office in Bangladesh is closely watching the weather patterns in the Bay of Bengal.

When cyclone Nargis formed in the Bay of Bengal, the Bangladesh authority also warned Bangladeshis about the cyclone via radio and multiple TV channels.
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