Aid Flows To Myanmar As Magnitude Of Loss Grows

BANGKOK — The death toll from a powerful cyclone that struck Myanmar three days ago rose to 22,500 Tuesday, with more than 40,000 people still missing, the government said, and foreign governments and aid organizations began mobilizing for a major relief operation.

NYTimes.com is asking readers inside Myanmar to help us report on the disaster by sending in photographs, video or written accounts.

Displaced residents who lost their homes in a powerful cyclone took shelter on Monday in a Buddhist temple. More Photos

Uprooted trees covered a sidewalk in Yangon, Myanmar’s main city. More Photos >

Residents lined up to get drinking water on Monday in Yangon, Myanmar. More Photos >

Shaken by the scope of the disaster, the authorities said they would delay a vote in the worst affected areas on a new constitution that was meant to cement the military’s grip on power.

The death toll was the latest in a steadily escalating official count since Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar early Saturday, devastating much of the fertile Irrawaddy Delta and Yangon, the nation’s main city.

At a news conference in Yangon, the minister for relief and resettlement, Maung Maung Swe, said 41,000 people were still missing in the aftermath of the cyclone, which triggered a surge of water inland from the sea.

“More deaths were caused by the tidal wave than the storm itself,” he said, in the first official description of the destruction. “The wave was up to 12 feet high and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages. They did not have anywhere to flee.”

A spokesman for the United Nations World Food Program said that as many as one million people might have lost their homes and that some villages were almost totally destroyed.

The constitutional referendum was still to go ahead on May 10 in other parts of the country but would be delayed until May 24 in the worst affected regions, where more than a third of the population live.

The postponement of the vote, a centerpiece of government policy, along with an appeal for foreign disaster relief assistance, were difficult concessions by an insular military junta that portrays itself as all-powerful and self-sufficient, analysts said.

“It suggests that they realize that they’ve got a real problem on their hands and have limited capacity to deal with this,” said a Western diplomat in Yangon, speaking on condition of anonymity because of his embassy’s policy.

At a news conference, Kyaw Hsan, Myanmar’s information minister, conceded the difficulties.

“The task is very wide and extensive and the government needs the cooperation of the people and well-wishers from at home and abroad,” he said.

“We will not hide anything,” he said. “Please ask the people not to be duped by rumors or fabrication.”

In an effort to stem profiteering as prices rose for food fuel and building materials, he said: “We are coordinating and cooperating with businessmen. We appeal to entrepreneurs and businessmen not to cash in on the disaster.”

Residents of Yangon reached by telephone described a city in tatters, with fallen trees, a lack of power and water and, in the poorer outskirts, badly damaged homes. Tank trucks were selling water from Inya Lake, in the center of the city, they said.

The high winds blew roofs off the cages at the zoo, one person reported, and a baboon or gibbon was spotted Monday sitting on top of a giant plastic ruby in the middle of a traffic circle near Shwedagon pagoda.

“He refused to get down,” the resident said, speaking anonymously because of a government ban on unofficial news. “This afternoon, when my driver and I drove by — the ruby and the monkey were gone!”

State radio said the referendum would be delayed for two weeks in badly hit areas that include the Irrawaddy Delta and much of Yangon.

These areas are centers of repressed opposition to the junta, and now potential centers of anger over what is described by both residents and foreign diplomats as an ineffectual government response to the cyclone.

Residents have described a mood of anger and a grim resignation at the junta’s power since the military shot into crowds last September to quell a huge non-violent pro-democracy uprising led by Buddhist monks.

At least 31 people, and possibly many more, were killed during that uprising, and thousands were detained, including large numbers of monks.

There were several accounts over the weekend of monks leaving their monasteries to help clear away storm wreckage, even as the military offered little help to residents.

International aid groups were assessing the country’s needs and preparing shipments of food and materials that included roofing materials, plastic tarpaulins, mosquito nets, water purifying tablets and medication to prevent outbreaks of cholera and malaria.

“We hope to fly in more assistance within the next 48 hours,” said the World Food Program spokesman, Paul Risley, speaking in Bangkok. “The challenge will be getting to the affected areas with road blockages everywhere.”

A military transport plane was scheduled to arrive Tuesday with emergency aid from Thailand.

A number of other nations and organizations, including the United Nations, the European Commission and Myanmar’s powerful neighbor China, said they were prepared to deliver aid.

In Geneva, a United Nations spokeswoman, Elisabeth Byrs, said that Myanmar had said it would welcome aid supplies and that disaster assessment officials were now awaiting visas to enter the country.

“Our biggest fear is that the aftermath could be more lethal than the storm itself,” said Caryl Stern, who heads the United Nations Children’s Fund in the United States.

The organization, UNICEF, said it had sent five assessment teams into affected areas and that relief supplies were being prepared for delivery.

The United States, which has led a drive for economic sanctions against Myanmar’s repressive regime, said it would also provide aid, but only if an American disaster team was invited into the country.

“We’re prepared to move U.S. Navy assets to help find those who have lost their lives, to help find the missing, to help stabilize the situation,” President George W. Bush said Tuesday in the Oval Office. Bush was signing legislation awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to Aung San Suu Kyi, the democracy advocate who has long been under house arrest in Myanmar.

The policy was presented by the first lady, Laura Bush, , along with a lecture to the junta about human rights and disaster relief.

“This is a cheap shot,” said Aung Nain Oo, a Burmese political analyst who is based in Thailand. “The people are dying. This is no time for a political message to be aired. This is a time for relief. No one is asking for anything like this except the United States.”

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