Yangon - The death toll in Myanmar from Cyclone Nargis reached 22,464 on Tuesday, Myanmar state media reported, putting the number of missing at 41,054 and those injured at 6,708.
A picture made available on 06 May 2008 showing citizens examine the damage in a narrow street in Yangon (formerly known as Rangon), Burma, 05 May 2008. EPA/HEINRICH SCHOENEICH
Myanmar's military regime, meanwhile, appealed for international aid amid the rising death toll in the wake of the cyclone, which smashed the country's central region over the weekend.
An earlier government estimate of the number of victims - as of late Monday - was 14,911 and 2,375 missing in Irrawaddy region and 504 in Yangon. The death toll had been expected to rise as reports from remote districts reach Yangon.
Information Minister Kyaw Hsan told a press conference in Yangon early Tuesday that the death toll in Bogalay township in the Irrawaddy region was close to 10,000 while the toll on Haing Kyi Island was 975, on Mawlamyaing Island 1,835 and in Laputta township about 1,000.
In Yangon, Myanmar's largest city and its chief commercial hub, the cyclone killed 59 people, the brigadier general said.
He reiterated the government's appeal for foreign aid. 'We need aid from both local and foreign sources,' Kyaw Hsan said. 'It is welcome.'
In Geneva, the United Nations said efforts to send aid teams were being hampered as the Myanmar military regime stalled over granting visas.
The UN had around 40 people on the ground already, said a spokesman, but its special five-member disaster assessment team (UNDAC) was in neighbouring Thailand awaiting visas along with staff from other humanitarian agencies. UNICEF said it was also awaiting visas.
The aid agencies, already struggling to reach the worst-hit areas because of blocked roads, the destruction of infrastructure and dense jungle areas, reported relief efforts were reliant on only a handful of staff already in the country.
The International Federation of the Red Cross said it had around 60 full-time staff and 18,000 volunteers providing front-line emergency aid in addition to the staff from the UN and other aid agencies.
Aye Win, spokesman for the UN Information Centre (UNIC) in Yangon, said the UN faced 'enormous difficulties' making an assessment of the disaster wrought by Cyclone Nargis.
'We are facing enormous difficulties right now in getting out there and unless there is an assessment ... the first thing you need is an assessment and then you can gauge your response,' he said.
'The UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) sent four teams to the Irrawaddy Delta region last night and today to make assessments, but you've got to understand that a lot of boats have been damaged out there and communications are non-existent.'
Myanmar, deemed a pariah state among Western democracies, has been cut off from most forms of traditional international aid such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank and bilateral aid for the past two decades, as part of the West's economic sanctions.
The UN is one of the only international agencies that has continued to operate in the country, and even their presence is limited, and often by lack in funding.
Even in Yangon, people remained largely without electricity, piped water and communications on Tuesday, four days after the cyclone struck.
'There has been some progress but there is still the problem of water scarcity, and the danger of diseases outbreaks, and this is just in Yangon,' said Aye Win.
Several countries have pledged aid to Myanmar - including three million dollars from the European Union, 750,000 dollars from Germany, 250,000 dollars from the United States and two ships of supplies from India - to cope with the humanitarian catastrophe caused by the cyclone.
On Tuesday afternoon, neighbouring Thailand flew in more than 300,000 dollars worth of medical and food aid, and a planeload of similar supplies from China was also sent.
It remains unclear whether Myanmar's regime would place restrictions on the aid deliveries and foreign aid workers as it has in the past.
'We can't yet provide any details,' said Major General Maung Maung Swe, minister of social welfare and resettlement, who attended the press conference with the information minister.
Hundreds of thousands have been left homeless and without basic utilities by the cyclone, which blew off the Bay of Bengal late Friday, packing winds of up to 200 kilometres per hour, wrecking much of the country's already fragile infrastructure and threatening its precarious food supply.
Yangon, Myanmar's former capital, was hit hard by the storm, which uprooted trees, toppled electricity and telephone poles, and burst water pipes, leaving the city of several million without basic utilities.
The Oslo-based opposition radio station Democratic Voice of Burma meanwhile said the death toll was much higher than the government was saying.
Deputy managing editor Khin Maung Win, singling out the Irrawaddy Delta as a specific disaster area, said: 'There are a lot of poor people there, many villages have been wiped out by the storms and heavy winds.'
The military government 'cannot handle the situation, they cannot even clean up areas and streets in Rangoon (Yangon). People can't help themselves.'
The fact that the government was asking for international assistance was due to the fact they have 'no choice' - but the regime was to blame - its shortcomings and failure to set up warning systems and evacuation plans and overall policies had contributed to the poverty, Khin Maung Win charged.
It still remains unclear whether Myanmar, which has been run by military dictatorships since 1962, would place restrictions on the aid deliveries and foreign aid workers as it has in the past.
The military junta that is ruling Myanmar, listed as one of the world's least developed countries, has earned a reputation for poor macro-economic management, let alone disaster-management.
Public funds to handle the crisis are severely limited, sources said.
Cyclone Nargis has shattered the isolated country at a sensitive time politically as the ruling military junta is preparing to hold a national referendum Saturday to win the approval of a constitution that would essentially cement the military's dominance in Myanmar's future elected governments.
Critics of the referendum and the military-drafted constitution have called on the government to postpone the vote to better cope with the humanitarian challenge that it faces in the coming weeks.
While insisting it would go ahead with the referendum, the government announced on Tuesday that it would allow the voting to be postponed until May 24 in 47 of the hardest-hit township in Irrawaddy and Yangon.
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