'Malign neglect' by Burmese junta

Last Modified: 11 May 2008
By: Jonathan Miller

David Miliband accuses the Burmese government of "malign neglect" calling the situation a "humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions".

Miliband said limited international aid is now getting through - though leading aid agencies warned that 1.5 million people are now at risk of dying from disease.

So far three Red Cross aid flights have arrived in Rangoon, with seven more due tomorrow.

The UN World Food Programme has flown in four planes with aid, with another due later today. It's also being allowed to move aid by road to its field headquarters in Labutta.

A US military aircraft with building supplies has permission to land in Burma tomorrow - two more should follow on Tuesday.

France is preparing to send a naval ship with 1,500 tonnes of rice and medical supplies. But there are still big problems with distribution.

One week on and emergency relief is making it into the heart of the Irrawaddy delta disaster zone.

In the battered town of Labutta many thousands died.

It has been invaded by survivors who now scrape by on just one cup of rice per family per day.

But clean water, food and medicine aren't getting down there fast enough to avert what agencies warn could result in a second wave of deaths, this time from disease.

The International Rescue Committee says that without a massive aid infusion, Burma faces tragedy on an unimaginable scale.

Oxfam says risk factors are in place for a catastrophe that could multiply the death toll fifteen-fold in the weeks ahead.

Oxfam public health engineer Rick Bauer said: "We've got all the elements to make us very worried. Massive displacement of people; inadequate water supplies; people living in flooded situations; little sanitation; the displaced in crowded centres such as schools and monasteries."

"We've got all the elements to make us very worried. Massive displacement of people; inadequate water supplies; people living in flooded situations; little sanitation"
Oxfam public health engineer Rick Bauer

Myanmar Television showed pictures of foreign aid being distributed today, overseen by the ever-present caring generals.

It's doubtless gratefully received, but if this seems like the massive infusion that's required, it's not.

This is a situation report drawing on information gathered by all relief agencies and UN bodies.

The picture on the ground is becoming a little clearer, it says, and sadly, more tragic. It presents the logistics outlook as bleak.

Rangoon airport, it says, is congested and overwhelmed.

It's capable of handling five to six flights a day - it should be handling one an hour. Aid that's already arrived languishes, not cleared in customs.

The UN has obtained authority to take just two trucks in from Thailand.

Rangoon Port is out of operation, with 40-80 ships sunk in the harbour. Roads are flooded, bridges are down, fuel is rationed and key emergency response staff still cannot get visas.

Under present circumstances and restrictions, the report concludes, we could be looking at a month or so at least to get the basic relief operation up and running.

Apocalyptic warnings of a looming public health catastrophe often follow big natural disasters.

After the tsunami, worst fears were not realised because emergency aid got in fast.

But obstruction and delay by Burma's military junta has resulted in a situation the world has not witnessed before now.

We've heard today that in Rangoon, trucks with loud-hailers have been driving round, telling residents not to believe the lies broadcast about the cyclone by the foreign media.