Myanmar death toll soars, devastation "huge"

By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's junta took diplomats on a tour of the storm-ravaged Irrawaddy delta on Saturday as the toll of dead and missing from Cyclone Nargis soared above 133,000 people, making it one of the most devastating ever to hit Asia.

In the last 50 years, only two Asian cyclones have exceeded Nargis in terms of human cost -- a 1970 storm that killed 500,000 people in neighbouring Bangladesh, and another that killed 143,000 in 1991, also in Bangladesh.

However, with an estimated 2.5 million people clinging to survival in the delta, and the military government refusing to admit large-scale outside relief, disaster experts say Nargis' body count could yet rise dramatically.

British officials say the actual toll may already be more than 200,000.

The military, which has ruled unchecked for the last 46 years, insists it is capable of handling aid distribution, seemingly out of fear an influx of helping foreigners might loosen its vice-like grip on power.

With heavy tropical downpours continuing to hamper the aid effort on Saturday, the generals took Yangon-based diplomats into the delta to see the army's relief operations, although it was expected to be a stage-managed and highly sanitised trip.

One envoy who went on a similar tour of a storm-hit district of Yangon, the former capital, described the neat rows of tents on display as "happy camps".

In the delta, the junta will have to work much harder to keep the diplomats away from the destitute.