YANGON – Torrential tropical downpours lashed Myanmar's cyclone-hit Irrawaddy delta on Friday as thousands of destitute victims took to roadsides to beg for help to supplement the meagre trickle of aid flowing in.

Myanmar state television says the cyclone's official death toll has nearly doubled to almost 78,000.

In the storm-struck town of Kunyangon, around 100 km (60 miles) southwest of Yangon, men, women and children stood in the mud and rain, their hands clasped together in supplication at the occasional passing aid vehicle.

'The situation has worsened in just two days,' one shocked aid volunteer said as crowds of children mobbed his vehicle, their grimy hands reaching through the window for scraps of bread or clothing.

Their desperate entreaties expose the fragility of the military government's claim to be on top of emergency aid distribution to up to 2.5 million people left clinging to survival by Nargis, which flooded an area of the delta the size of Austria.

The junta's official death toll from the May 2 disaster has passed 40,000 but most experts say the real figure is likely to be far higher. British officials have said the number of dead and missing may exceed 200,000.

Given its ban on foreign journalists and restrictions on movement for most international aid workers, independent assessments are difficult.

The former Burma's ruling generals insist their relief operations are running smoothly, refusing to allow major aid distribution networks run by foreign agencies and workers.

But the junta issued an edict in state-run newspapers on Friday saying legal action would be taken against anybody found hoarding or selling relief supplies, amid rumors of local military units expropriating trucks of food, blankets and water.

If emergency supplies do not get through in much greater quantities, starvation and disease are very real threats.

One international health group has confirmed cholera among survivors, but the number was in line with normal levels at this time of year in an area where the disease is endemic, health officials said.

'We don't have an explosion of cholera,' World Health Organization (WHO) official Maureen Birmingham said in Bangkok.

Many cyclone refugees, crammed into monasteries, schools and other temporary shelters after the devastating storm, have gone down with diarrhoea, dysentery and skin infections.

EU URGES OPENING UP TO AID

The European Union's top aid official, Louis Michel, met ministers in Yangon on Thursday and urged them to admit foreign aid workers and essential equipment to keep the death toll, which the Red Cross says could be as high as 128,000, from rising.

Michel, like so many other envoys before, made no headway.

'Relations between Myanmar and the international community are difficult,' he told Reuters.

'But that is not my problem. The time is not for political discussion. It's time to deliver aid to save lives.'

Earlier, the reclusive generals, the latest face of 46 years of unbroken military rule, signalled they would not budge on their position of limiting foreign access to the delta, fearful that doing so might loosen their vice-like grip on power.

'We have already finished our first phase of emergency relief. We are going onto the second phase, the rebuilding stage,' state television quoted Prime Minister Thein Sein as telling his Thai counterpart this week.

Underlining where its main attentions lie, the junta announced an overwhelming vote in favour of an army-backed constitution in a referendum held on May 10, despite calls for a delay in the light of the disaster.

One advocacy group, Burma Campaign UK, said protests were planned in more than 30 cities around the globe on Saturday 'to demand the world does more to aid cyclone victims', even if that meant acting without Myanmar's permission.

DRIBS AND DRABS

Two weeks after the storm tore through the heavily populated Irrawaddy delta rice bowl, food, medicine and temporary shelter have been sent in dribs and drabs to devastated communities.

In Kunyangon, the junta has started distributing small amounts of emergency food.

But around the town, the countryside remains a mess of half-submerged trees, snapped electricity pylons or bamboo poles – the skeletal remains of a house – leaning at crazy angles.

Frustrated by the speed of the official response, ordinary people were taking matters into their own hands, sending trucks and vans into the delta with clothes, biscuits, dried noodles, and rice provided by private companies and individuals.

'There are too many people. We just cannot give enough. How can the government act as if nothing happened?' said one volunteer, who declined to be named for fear of reprisals.

(With additional reporting by Ed Cropley in BANGKOK; Editing by Jerry Norton and Darren Schuettler)

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