Cyclone kills nearly 4,000, Myanmar accepts help

A television grab from May 4, 2008 shows a tree fallen onto a building after a cyclone in Myanmar.

YANGON (Reuters) - A devastating cyclone killed nearly 4,000 people and left thousands more missing in army-ruled Myanmar, state media said on Monday as the ruling generals gave a "careful green light" to offers of international aid.

The secretive military, which has ruled the former Burma for 46 years and has been shunned by Western governments after a violent crackdown on Buddhist monk-led protests last September, conveyed the message at a meeting with U.N. officials in Yangon.

The death toll from Saturday's cyclone covered only two of the five declared disaster zones, where U.N. officials said hundreds of thousands of people were without shelter and drinking water.

"The confirmed number is 3,934 dead, 41 injured and 2,879 missing within the Yangon and Irrawaddy divisions," Myanmar TV reported three days after Cyclone Nargis, a storm with winds of 190 kph (120 mph), hit the Irrawaddy delta.

Earlier reports put the death toll at 351, but the number of casualties had been expected to rise as authorities reached hard-hit islands and villages in the delta, rice bowl for the impoverished Southeast Asian country of 53 million.

Government officials gave a "careful green light" to United Nations to send immediate emergency aid , a U.N. spokesman said.

"The U.N. will begin preparing assistance now to be delivered and transported to Myanmar as quickly as possible," Paul Risley of the World Food Programme told Reuters.

FOREIGN AID

The United States, which has imposed sanctions on the junta, said it had provided funds through the World Food Programme and other aid groups.

"It doesn't necessarily go directly to the government," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel told reporters. "But we're in the process of assessing what more we can do."

Two Indian naval ships loaded with food, tents, blankets, clothing and medicines would sail for Yangon soon, Indian's Ministry of External Affairs said.

Offers of help have also came from Singapore and neighbouring Thailand, while the European Union said it had extra humanitarian staff on standby and was ready to provide aid quickly.

The junta leaders, bunkered in their isolated new capital of Naypyidaw, 400 km (240 miles) north of Yangon, said they would go ahead with a May 10 referendum on a new army-drafted constitution that critics say will entrench the military.

The last major storm to ravage Asia was Cyclone Sidr which killed 3,300 people in Bangladesh last November.

In the former capital Yangon, food and fuel prices have soared as aid agencies scrambled to deliver emergency supplies and assess the damage in the five declared disaster zones, home to 24 million people.

"How many people are affected? We know that it's in the six figures," Richard Horsey, of the U.N. disaster response office, told Reuters after an emergency aid meeting in Bangkok on Monday before the state TV announcement.

"We know that it's several hundred thousand needing shelter and clean drinking water, but how many hundred thousand we just don't know."

CRITICAL

The U.N. office in Yangon said there was an urgent need for plastic sheeting, water purification tablets, cooking equipment, mosquito nets, health kits and food.

It said the situation outside Yangon was "critical, with shelter and safe water being the principal immediate needs".

Thailand responded to the disaster, sending a C-130 transport plane loaded with food and medicine to Yangon after the airport reopened on Monday, Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama said.

In Yangon, many roofs were ripped off even sturdy buildings, suggesting damage would be severe in the shanty towns that lie on the outskirts of the city of 5 million people.

At the city's notorious Insein prison, soldiers and police killed 36 prisoners to quell a riot that started when inmates were herded into a large hall and started a fire to try to keep warm, a Thailand-based human rights group said.

Clean water was scarce. Most shops had sold out of candles and batteries and there was no word when power would be restored.

Long queues formed at the few open petrol stations. The price of a gallon of petrol has doubled on the black market, while egg prices have tripled since Saturday.

State television showed military and police units on rescue and cleanup operations in Yangon, but residents complained the junta's response was weak.

"Where are the soldiers and police? They were very quick and aggressive when there were protests in the streets last year," a retired government worker told Reuters, referring to protests led by Buddhist monks last year that were swiftly crushed.

Michael Annear, regional disaster chief for the International Red Cross, said emergency supplies were being handed out from stockpiles in Myanmar, but more was needed.

(Additional reporting by Bangkok bureau)