Junta 'co-operative'

A leading Australian aid agency says the Burmese military regime has allowed its efforts to provide urgent relief following the catastrophic aftermath of Cyclone Nargis.

CARE Australia, which has operated in parts of Burma for 14 years, has already begun providing plastic sheeting for emergency shelter, food, water and other essentials.

With the latest death toll reaching 22,000 dead, 41,000 missing and expected to continue rising from the weekend cyclone, many aid agencies are still awaiting travel visas to enter the reclusive nation.

The US and Australia have led international calls today for the military junta to ease emergency entry restrictions.

CARE Australia spokesman Robert Yallop said today that authorities had been cooperative.

"We've had full support from the authorities, working with the UN. The scale is quite enormous," Mr Yallop told the Nine Network this morning.

"Every indication that we have at the moment is that we've been receiving full cooperation from the government authorities in Myanmar Burma.

"The UN is basically organising most of that interaction with the government authorities, but we have certainly had no impediment to our activities to date."
Mr Yallop said CARE's team in Burma had been shocked by the extent of the devastation, and called for Australians to donate money to the relief fund.

"The CARE Australia team's were out yesterday in areas just on the outskirts of Yangon (Rangoon), along the river. They were shocked," Mr Yallop said.

"What they found were that there were thousands of people who are now living in pagodas, in schools, who've lost their houses.

"We're beginning to provide plastic sheeting for shelter, provide food, water and other immediate needs.

"But the scale of this is quite enormous and in the coming days the requirements are going to be much, much greater.

"There are a lot of things that need to be brought in.

"We will be bringing in materials and equipment from Thailand, but what we really need at the moment is the generous support of the Australian public so that we can simply get enough resources to provide assistance for this effort."

John Sparrow, from Red Cross, said his organisation's 10-year history in Burma had smoothed the way for a timely aid effort.

"We have a working relationship with the authorities and we are hoping that the cooperation will continue through this operation," he told the Nine Network.

"The authorities are well aware of what has happened. They have set up a coordination effort among themselves."

Mr Sparrow said some villages were 90-95 per cent destroyed and he expected the death toll to rise.

"Aid is beginning to role, we have 70,000 Myanmar (Burma) Red Cross volunteers working right now to get materials to people affected by the storm. We need to get much more in," Mr Sparrow said.

"We have some stocks for relief goods pre-positioned in country.

"The two things that concern us most are shelter and clean, portable water."

Tim Costello, from World Vision, will leave from Australia for Burma today.

"There's no doubt everyone knows the political situation, everyone knows we're walking on eggshells. I'll need to leave it to other commentators to talk about the politics because we're there for a humanitarian purpose," he told the Seven Network.

"We've got 600 staff in there handing out blankets, mosquito nets, food and water."

Mr Costello likened the situation to the Banda Aceh disaster in Indonesia immediately after the disastrous 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

"The news trickled out very slowly and the response was much slower than in Sri Lanka," he said.

"There is no question democracies respond much much more quickly to these emergencies.

"This Myanmar government has invited us to assist, and we're going there. Whatever the other rights and wrongs of this political situation, we would have to leave to others speak about."

Mr Costello said World Vision would spend more than $3 million in the first four weeks, and called on Australians to donate money.

"I know it is a big ask, but it is our neighbourhood."

AAP-SMH