Jun 5, 2008, 4:58 GMT
Jakarta - A 200-strong team will be deployed Thursday to the Irrawaddy delta area to begin a full assessment of the extent of the damage and the urgent needs of the Cyclone Nargis victims in Myanmar, officials said in Jakarta.
The ASEAN-UN-Myanmar Tripartite Core Group agreed that after two days of intense briefing for their team, they are now ready to move into the cyclone stricken remote delta areas, the Secretariat-General of ASEAN said in a statement.
'We will begin with two advance teams being ferried by World Food Programme's helicopter to two main townships of Labutta and Pyapon,' said Surin Pitsuwan, secretary-general of ASEAN.
The assessment team will comprise of members from the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, UN agencies and the Myanmar government, it said.
They are expected to cover the entire cyclone-affected areas and compile first-hand information into a joint assessment, the statement said.
An ASEAN Roundtable is expected to take place on June 24 in Yangon with full participation of the ASEAN Humanitarian Task Force (AHTF) which will have its own third meeting on the next day, for an 'emergency response and recovery,' the statement said.
'This is important in view of the fact that ASEAN itself needs to build up our capacity to prepare for similar emergencies in the future,' he said, adding that the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) are supporting ASEAN for this exercise.
'I am personally very pleased with the progress made so far by the Tripartite Core Group, but the next two weeks would be crucial for building international confidence in this joint mission between ASEAN, the UN and the government of Myanmar,' Surin said.
UN officials estimate more than 77,000 have been killed and 55,000 others are missing since Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar May 2 and 3.
Cyclone Nargis left an estimated 2.4 million people in need of food, shelter or medical care. The UN said some 1.3 million have received assistance.
ASEAN members include Indonesia, Cambodia, Brunei, Myanmar, Malaysia, Laos, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
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