By Hla Hla Htay

YANGON (AFP) - At least 351 people were killed and nearly 100,000 left homeless when tropical cyclone Nargis tore through Myanmar, razing thousands of buildings and knocking out power lines, state media said.

Residents awoke to scenes of devastation after the cyclone bore through swathes of southern Myanmar late Friday and Saturday, uprooting trees, cutting phone lines and water pipes, and clogging streets with debris.

Myanmar's state channel MRTV said on their Sunday evening news broadcast that 109 people had been killed in Haing Gyi island, just off the coast of southwestern Ayeyawaddy division where the storm first hit.

One person was killed in Nyaung Done, a township also in Ayeyawaddy, the channel reported.

An information ministry official and state media had already reported that another 222 people had died in Ayeyawaddy, while 19 others were killed in the economic hub Yangon.

The authorities have declared disaster zones in the regions of Yangon, Ayeyawaddy, Bago, Mon and Karen states.

MRTV said that about 20,000 houses have been destroyed on Haing Gyi island, and 92,706 people there were now homeless.

In one mainland township in Ayeyawaddy, 75 percent of all homes were believed to be destroyed, the channel said, adding that authorities had launched a rescue operation in the region.

Nargis made landfall late Friday around the mouth of the Ayeyawaddy (Irrawaddy) river, about 220 kilometres (137 miles) southwest of Yangon, before hitting the country's economic hub.

The cyclone brought down power and phone lines, cutting off the military-run nation one week before a crucial referendum on its new constitution -- the first polling in Myanmar since general elections in 1990.

The coastal area of Ayeyawaddy appears worst hit by the natural disaster, but Yangon was also battered.

Traffic lights, billboards and street lamps littered the roads after being knocked over by strong winds.

Trees in the leafy city were uprooted, crushing buildings and cars, while water pipes were also cut, forcing people out onto the streets with buckets to try and buy water from the few shops that remained open.

Roofs of houses have been torn away, while only a few taxis and buses -- which tripled their fares -- braved the debris-clogged streets on Sunday.

The information ministry official said seven empty boats had sunk in the country's main port, while Yangon's international airport was closed.

State media said the airport was due to reopen on Monday.

"Now the military and police have started to clean the city," the official said. "We are trying to get back to the normal situation as soon as possible."

Electricity supplies and telecommunications in Yangon have been cut since late Friday night as the storm bore down from the Bay of Bengal, packing winds of 190-240 kilometres (120-150 miles) per hour.

There are also fears that the poorer outlying areas of Yangon, with their flimsy houses, might have been hard hit.

"A tea shop owner told me that many people in a Yangon suburb need urgent help for food and accommodation," one food vendor said. "Some children are not even wearing clothes."

Myanmar's infrastructure has been run into the ground by decades of mismanagement by the military, which has ruled since 1962.

It was not immediately known whether damage from the storm would affect next Saturday's referendum on a new constitution, which the ruling junta says will pave the way for democratic elections in 2010.

Critics, however, say the charter will simply enshrine the military's power.

Residents in Yangon said they had heard speculation that the referendum might be postponed, but the information ministry official refused to comment.

"We cannot say anything, it is up to the senior authorities," he said.

Thailand's meteorological department downgraded Nargis to a depression on Sunday, but warned of flash floods and heavy rains in northern, central and eastern Thai provinces as the storm crept over the border from Myanmar.

An official at Thailand's disaster prevention department told AFP that as of Sunday evening, there were no reports of severe flooding in the kingdom.

Burma Cyclone Aid Effort Begins
By Sky News

International aid agency workers have begun an operation to supply food to over one million people left homeless by the devastating cyclone in Burma.

The UN's World Food Program (WFP) comes as the death toll within the country is reported to have risen beyond 22,000.

A further 41,000 people remain missing after Cyclone Nargis ravaged the country's coastline on Saturday.

"WFP food assistance has now begun to reach persons who are without shelter or food resources in and around Yangon," the said Chris Kaye, the agency's director for Burma.

Food prices inside Burma are reported to have rocketed by 50% overnight in the face of acute demand.

The WFP faces an uphill struggle to reach all those stranded, with many coastal areas cut off from supplies because of flooding and road damage.

Mr Kaye added that additional truckloads of food would be dispatched to Labutta township, the area hardest hit by the 120mph winds.

More deaths were caused by a resulting 12-foot wave than the cyclone itself, according to the Burmese authorities.

In the city of Bogalay in the Irrawaddy river delta, 95% of homes are thought to have been destroyed.

There has been widespread criticism of the secretive Burmese junta for failing to warn the population about the approaching storm.

The regime has now agreed to accept help from the international community, but questions still remain over how much access foreign rescuers will be allowed to the country.

Myanmar junta urges patriotic 'yes' to referendum

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's junta urged citizens on Friday to do their patriotic duty and vote for an army-drafted constitution, without mentioning the 1.5 million people clinging to survival a week after a devastating cyclone.

The constitution is a key step in the junta's seven-point "roadmap to democracy", which is meant to culminate in multi-party elections in 2010 and bring to an end nearly five decades of military rule in the Southeast Asian country.

It has been widely derided by the opposition and Western governments as a blueprint for the generals cementing a grip on the power they first seized in a 1962 coup.

"If you are patriotic and you love your nation you must give an affirmative vote," said one message broadcast on state-run MRTV on Friday.

Accompanying the appeals were performances by popular singers, actors and musicians and slogans such as "the approval of the draft constitution is the responsibility of every citizen, so go to the polling booth and approve the constitution."

The government announced on Tuesday it would go ahead with the vote in parts of the country not affected by Cyclone Nargis, but postponed it by two weeks to May 24 in the hardest-hit Irrawaddy delta.

Diplomats and disaster experts said the death toll is likely to rise to 100,000 people and the United Nations says 1.5 million people have been "severely affected".

Myanmar state-run radio and TV did not give an update on Friday of the official toll, which stood at 22,980 killed with 42,119 missing as of Tuesday.

While the military has appealed for outside help for disaster victims, it has been reluctant to allow a full-scale international relief effort, delaying the approval of visas and landing rights for aircraft carrying urgently needed supplies.

Some critics accuse the junta of stalling because they do not want an influx of foreigners into the countryside during Saturday's referendum.

The constitution gives the military an automatic 25 percent of seats in parliament, control of key ministries and right to suspend the constitution at will.

Foreign powers lean on Myanmar to open up aid effort
By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) - Western powers kept up the pressure on Myanmar's generals on Thursday to allow a massive aid effort as relief workers struggled to help an estimated 2.5 million people left destitute by Cyclone Nargis.

The European Union's top aid official has warned that the military government's restrictions on foreign aid workers and equipment were increasing the risk of starvation and disease in the country formerly known as Burma.

Nearly two weeks after the deadly storm tore through the heavily populated Irrawaddy delta rice bowl, leaving up to 127,990 people dead, supplies of food, medicine and temporary shelter have been sent out in dribs and drabs to devastated communities.

In Myanmar's main city, Yangon, foreign aid experts prevented from accessing the delta play pool in the evenings and watch, in frustration, television footage of the miserable conditions.

"People all over the world want to help Myanmar but the government is blocking medical teams," said one relief worker.

The United Nations has ramped up its estimate of the number of people in urgent need of aid to 2.5 million, roughly the population of the U.S. state of Nevada, and has called for a high-level donors conference to deal with the crisis.

POLITICAL PRESSURE

Louis Michel, the European Union's top aid official, is in Yangon for talks with the junta but his mission comes a day after Thailand's prime minister was told Myanmar could deal with "the problem" by itself.

"We want to convince the authorities of our good faith. We are there for humanitarian reasons," Michel earlier told reporters.

He dismissed suggestions from some European countries that they should bring in aid without waiting for permission from the authorities.

But as the clock ticks and conditions in refugee shelters deteriorate the political pressure on Myanmar is likely to grow.

Britain's U.N. ambassador, John Sawers, has indicated that a high-level conference would be more than a donors' meeting, calling it a "major international meeting" in line with Prime Minister Gordon Brown's calls for a U.N. summit on coordinating aid efforts in Myanmar.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has also proposed appointing a joint coordinator from the U.N and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to oversee aid delivery and has said he would soon send the U.N's humanitarian chief John Holmes to Myanmar.

The Secretary-General of ASEAN urged patience when dealing with the generals.

"We are trying to work around a very, very strict resistance and mentality and mindset that have been there for a long, long time," Surin Pitsuwan, a former Thai foreign minister, told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

JUST HELP

The former Burma was once the world's biggest rice-exporting country, but more than 40 years of military rule have left it impoverished. The military rulers have repeatedly crushed pro-democracy movements and tightly restrict visits by foreigners.

A senior U.S. military official in Washington said there were signs aid was stacking up at Yangon airport and said Washington wanted to fly choppers to the areas hit worst.

Officials said that despite reports some supplies were being stolen or diverted by the army, the humanitarian needs were so great that they would keep making deliveries -- while continuing to urge that U.S. aid workers be granted visas.

As diplomatic efforts roll on, U.S. emergency aid flights will continue and non-governmental organisations with local staff continue to do what they can.

"I think at this moment we have to drop politics and just help," said Frank Smithius, head of Medecins Sans Frontieres.

"The army is definitely distributing food in certain areas, they're not doing nothing. But it's not enough. In some areas there's enough food but not enough water and shelter. In other areas we see that they have nothing."

Myanmar children 'could starve within weeks'

BANGKOK (AFP) - A leading aid group warned Sunday that thousands of young children in cyclone-ravaged Myanmar could starve to death within weeks unless emergency food supplies reach them soon.

Save the Children said on its website that the youngsters could succumb to hunger "within two to three weeks".

"We are extremely worried that many children in the affected areas are now suffering from severe acute malnourishment, the most serious level of hunger," said Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children UK.

"When people reach this stage, they can die in a matter of days. Children may already be dying as a result of a lack of food."

Cyclone Nargis tore a path of destruction through southwest Myanmar earlier this month, leaving nearly 134,000 people dead or missing and affecting up to 2.5 million survivors, the United Nations has said.

As many as 40 percent of the needy are believed to be children, and aid workers have become increasingly frustrated by the Myanmar regime's restrictions on the relief operation.

Save the Children said that 30,000 children in the delta region of Myanmar, one of the world's poorest countries, were malnourished before the storm.

The cyclone destroyed food stocks and rice paddies in the key food producing region, raising fears of a famine in the military-ruled nation.

"With hundreds of thousands of people still not receiving aid, many of these children will not survive much longer," the statement said.

Save the Children said they had so far reached 140,000 people -- a small proportion of the roughly 2.5 million people desperately in need of food, shelter, clean water and medical supplies.

While supplies have been arriving in Yangon, relief agencies say the junta's insistence that they can deliver all the aid themselves -- despite a lack of equipment -- has created a bottle-neck in getting food to the most needy.

More will die unless Myanmar junta changes approach

ABOARD A US MILITARY PLANE (AFP) - More people will die unless Myanmar changes its approach to foreign relief after the devastating cyclone, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday, accusing the junta of "criminal neglect."

"Unless the regime changes its approach, its policy, more people will die," Gates said en route to Bangkok after a high-level security forum in Singapore.

"I would describe it as criminal neglect."

Gates also said a decision to recall four US Navy ships waiting to deliver aid to Myanmar could come in "a matter of days."

"No decision has been made at this point," Gates said, adding it was "becoming pretty clear" the junta would not accept their help.

"We have really exercised our moral obligation above and beyond the call. We have made 15 or more overtures to the Burmese government to allow us to help," he told reporters.

The USS Essex and three other ships have been off the coast of Myanmar for more than two weeks with a dozen helicopters, landing craft and Marines.

The United States has offered to use the hardware to distribute relief to victims of the cyclone which left more than two million people in need, according to the United Nations.

In the crucial days immediately after the May 2-3 cyclone, which left 133,000 people dead or missing, Myanmar's ruling military junta blocked entry to overseas aid workers trying to reach some 2.4 million survivors.

Supplies are now trickling through to worst-hit areas following intense UN diplomacy, but the junta, notoriously suspicious of the West, is still wary of what is coming in.

"We would warmly welcome any assistance and aid which are provided with genuine goodwill from any country or organisation, provided that there are no strings attached, or politicisation involved," Deputy Defence Minister Aye Myint told a forum in Singapore on Sunday.

He said officials were now concentrating on reconstruction after a cyclone which the junta estimates caused more than 10 billion dollars in damage.

"For those groups who are interested in rehabilitation and reconstruction, we are ready to accept them in accordance with our priorities," he added.

But aid workers already in the impoverished country and heading to remote villages are still finding people without clean water and at risk of disease.

"We hope the aid to the delta region can increase. Even already it has been 25 days after the storm -- people still need help," said one aid worker with the Japan branch of Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

With the monsoon rains now hitting hard, survivors are at increased risk of respiratory infections, MSF said in a statement.

And although more visas are being issued to foreign staff, they said it was still not enough.

"Normally, in a situation like this, MSF would send in a lot more international staff with experience in emergency response to natural disasters," the group said.

"Our aid effort has been hampered by restrictions on international staff presence in the delta."

The International Labour Organisation said it was now concerned the junta could use forced labour to rebuild areas of the country devastated by Cyclone Nargis, and must be closely watched over.

There is an "increased risk of incidences of forced labour, child labour, human trafficking and migrant labour" following the disaster, the UN organisation said in a report out of Yangon presented Saturday.

With crucial supplies now arriving, aid groups hope storm victims can think about returning to the fields in this key rice-growing area.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation has warned that the next rice planting season must go ahead in early June to prevent a food shortage.

"I am so thankful for all the support -- the food, shelter and clothes provided from different donors," said one paddy field worker. "Because of their care to us, I can go back to work once the rice fields are ready."