YANGON (AFP) — Myanmar lowered its flags on Tuesday to begin three days of mourning for about 133,000 people dead or missing in the cyclone, as Southeast Asia set to work coordinating a much-needed relief effort.
In one of the first demonstrations of public grief since the tropical storm pummelled swathes of this impoverished nation 18 days ago, national flags in front of Yangon's City Hall fluttered at half mast in the light morning rain.
There was no minute of silence for the victims or a public ceremony, as pressure mounted on the regime to scale up the relief effort for two million survivors in desperate need of food , shelter and medicine.
Myanmar agreed at regional talks in Singapore on Monday to allow the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to coordinate an international relief effort, after resisting repeated foreign bids to deliver aid to hard-hit areas.
Despite the compromise with ASEAN, the regime has yet to soften its refusal to allow in foreign aid workers in the numbers needed to reach the survivors, even in the face of warnings that people could die without help.
"The humanitarian community indicates that 500,000 people (currently) receive some form of international assistance," the UN said in its latest internal report.
"This is substantially less than the 2.4 million estimated to be affected."
The ruling generals are notoriously mistrustful of Western influence and have provoked international outcry since the disaster hit by limiting the flow of foreign supplies to survivors, many of whom are languishing without aid.
"So far we haven't got any supplies from the government," said Mya Mya, a 43-year-old flower seller who is sheltering in a public school after the storm destroyed her home in the main city Yangon.
"We just got some supplies from private donors, so that's why I have to work for my family," she told AFP as the mourning period beganTuesday.
Pressure has, however, been mounting on the generals from all sides to find a way to allow the aid into the hardest-hit southern Irrawaddy Delta.
The UN's top aid official John Holmes was finally allowed Monday to glimpse how desperate the situation has become, as he toured part of the delta, where entire villages were washed away.
"He was able to visit Labutta and Wakema townships in the Irrawaddy Delta and saw first hand the situation in the area," the UN report said, adding that Holmes would meet government officials on Tuesday.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who had earlier failed to get reclusive juntahead Than Shwe even to take his phone calls, was set to visit the hardest-hit regions of Myanmar on Thursday ahead of weekend fund-raising talk in Yangon.
Analysts say the ASEAN deal, which will also see teams of Asian medics from nine countries travel into Myanmar, was a face-saving way the junta could allow relief into the country without being seen to cave to Western pressure.
One Western diplomat in Yangon said the regime was taking its queue from close ally China, which is also dealing with a disaster after an earthquake killed at least 34,000 people in the southwest.
"It is possible that there was Chinese pressure," the diplomat said.
"The fact that the junta has declared three days of mourning now, whereas the cyclone took place more than two weeks ago, is very significant. China has declared (a) national mourning after the earthquake."
Than Shwe spent a second consecutive day Monday touring the disaster zone, venturing into the hardest-hit regions of the delta for the first time, state television reported. Until Sunday, the senior general had not made a public appearance or remark about the disaster.
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