UN seeks $187m to aid cyclone survivors

Residents rebuild a house after the killer Cyclone Nargis near Bogalay Friday. Tens of thousands of people were killed after last week's storm, which struck the Irrawaddy Delta region hard. Photo: AFP

The United Nations is seeking $187 million to help an estimated 1.5 million cyclone survivors in Myanmar over the next three months, UN officials said Friday.
The world body appealed to donor nations to pledge money for food, water purification tablets, emergency health kits, mosquito nets, cooking sets, plastic sheeting and water jugs.
The money would go to 10 UN agencies and nine non-governmental organisations.
"If we do not act now, and if we do not act fast, more lives will be lost," said John Holmes, the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs.
The United States, Britain, France and other nations called on Myanmar to ensure unfettered access for aid workers, release aid shipments, speedily grant visas and waive importation fees.
"Myanmar intends to cooperate with the international community to address this great challenge," said Kyaw Tint Swe, Myanmar's UN ambassador.
But, he added: "It has to be orderly and systematic."
In Atlanta, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said his staff was negotiating with Myanmar to break the gridlock, although he said leaders of the junta had "regrettably" not yet made direct contact with him.
"It's moving toward the right direction," he said.
The UN World Food Programme announced it had suspended aid shipments Friday after two planeloads of supplies were seized by government officials. WFP later reversed the decision and said the flights would resume Saturday.
That agency seeks $56 million to feed 630,000 hungry people living in badly damaged areas or temporary shelters.
Saturday's cyclone killed tens of thousands of people and left many more missing. Diplomats and aid groups have warned the number of dead could eventually exceed 100,000 because of illnesses and that the country is on the brink of a medical catastrophe.
Meanwhile, Asia's top security forum on Friday pressured Myanmar to quickly allow in international aid for cyclone victims amid complaints by foreign agencies that relief workers were being denied entry.
Senior officials of the Asean Regional Forum (ARF) meeting in Singapore said they understood the internal difficulties following the devastation of Cyclone Nargis, but more needed to be done to get international aid to the needy.
Nearly all delegates to the meeting of the 27-member ARF, which includes China, the United States and the European Union, offered to help Myanmar, Janez Premoze, who headed the EU delegation, told AFP.
"There is a certain understanding (of the difficulties), but now we are talking about three, four, five days after it has happened and we would expect that this thing would be ... dealt with in a better way," he said.
However, many of them also urged better coordination, including in issuing visas to foreign relief workers and getting supplies to affected areas.
A Southeast Asian foreign ministry official, who asked not to be named, said Myanmar officials were told that "the more you delay aid, the more serious the damage will be."
Tens of thousands of people were killed and more than one million left homeless by the storm, which struck the Irrawaddy Delta region a week ago.