UN head tours Myanmar disaster area

YANGON (AFP) - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday toured the Myanmar cyclone disaster area, as he began talks with the junta on opening up to a massive relief effort that could save countless lives.


The country's military leaders have shocked the world by refusing a full-scale emergency operation despite the scope of the destruction, and Ban said he would try to persuade them to welcome offers of help with open arms.


"The whole world is trying to help Myanmar," Ban said as he visited a camp of survivors from the May 2-3 storm, which has left around 134,000 people dead or missing and another 2.5 million people in need of immediate aid.


"Don't lose your hope," he told one woman in the devastated Irrawaddy Delta, the rice bowl region which bore the brunt of the worst natural disaster in the country's history. "The United Nations is here to help you."


Ban said there were recent signs of "flexibility" from the regime, which in the past few days has consented to UN helicopters flying to remote villages to help speed up a relief effort criticised by the international community.

But the UN chief could not get the head of the junta, Senior General Than Shwe, to take his calls or answer his letters in the aftermath of the disaster, and the regime has a long history of thumbing its nose at world opinion.

Ban is to meet Than Shwe on Friday in the remote capital of Naypyidaw, hoping to stress the urgency of the crisis as well as the international fury that has led to allegations of crimes against humanity over the disaster.

The United Nations believes only 25 percent of those in immediate need of food, water, shelter and medicines have been reached by international aid three weeks after the disaster struck.