YANGON, Myanmar – Myanmar's junta has given the World Food Program permission to use helicopters to send aid to cyclone survivors, the United Nations said yesterday, as flags flew at half-staff across the country to mourn the dead.
The first day of a three-day mourning period passed in torrential rain and diplomatic prodding of the reclusive generals to allow more international aid after Cyclone Nargis hit in early May, leaving 134,000 people dead or missing.
Ban, due to arrive in Thailand today and go to Myanmar tomorrow, said he hoped junta leader Than Shwe would be among senior government officials he meets.
The declaration of a mourning period, after the first post-cyclone visit to the delta Monday by Than Shwe, 75, was taken as a sign that the leadership had woken up to the scale of the catastrophe.
“The old man must have been shocked to see the real situation with his own eyes,” one retired government official said in Yangon, where the start of the monsoon season has caused more flooding and misery for storm survivors.
Than Shwe, who has run Myanmar since 2005 from Naypyitaw, a new capital 250 miles north of Yangon, was shown on state television touring hard-hit towns Monday and again yesterday, offering words of encouragement and giving orders.
U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes, visiting Myanmar, said military-run camps in the devastated Irrawaddy delta “seemed well-organized” but that most survivors had no shelter.
“There are still a lot of supplies needed to get in in the future in terms of food, but not just for now but for some months to come,” Holmes told reporters after meeting Prime Minister Thein Sein.
Scot Marciel, the U.S. envoy to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Myanmar is a member, said the junta's response to the disaster has been “appalling” with hundreds of thousands of lives at risk.
