Myanmar regime assess needs of cyclone survivors

YANGON - A MAJOR operation has been launched to assess the needs of Myanmar's storm survivors in a sign the military regime is finally cooperating in international aid efforts five weeks after Cyclone Nargis buffeted the country.

However, Tuesday's positive development contrasted with reports that 18 cyclone victims - women and children - on their way to the United Nations office to plead for help were arrested in the commercial capital, Yangon.

Some 250 experts from the UN, the Myanmar government and Southeast Asian nations headed into the Irrawaddy delta on Tuesday by truck, boat and helicopter for a village-by-village survey, the United Nations said.

Over the next 10 days, they will determine how much food, clean water and temporary shelter the 2.4 million survivors require, along with the cost of rebuilding houses and schools and reviving the farm-based economy.

'It has taken quite a long time but this shows the government is on board by its commitment to facilitate the relief operation and the scaling up that people are asking for,' said Ms Amanda Pitt, a UN spokeswoman in Bangkok, Thailand.

The UN estimated Cyclone Nargis affected 2.4 million people and warned more than 1 million of them, mostly in the delta, still need help. The cyclone killed more than 78,000 people in impoverished Myanmar.

The ruling junta has been sharply criticised by foreign governments and aid agencies for its ineptness in handling the disaster. It also has come under fire for forcing survivors from camps and allegedly dumping them in their destroyed villages.

Authorities detained 18 women and children on Tuesday as they walked to the UN offices in Yangon to complain about not receiving any government assistance, according to a government official who refused to be identified for fear of retaliation.

The group, from Dagon township on the outskirts of Yangon, was bundled into a waiting police car and remains in detention, witnesses said.

Ms Pitt said she was hopeful the start of the international assessment signalled a greater willingness on the part of the government to work alongside aid workers to reach survivors and allow them to better understand their needs.

'This should give us a comprehensive, across-the-board understanding of who has been reached, which responding agency reached them and what they received,' Ms Pitt said.

The information will be collected in a report to be released next month by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and should motivate more countries to donate to the cyclone relief operation, she said.

AP-Straits Times