Burma faces new threat of disease and hunger
Updated
They're still counting the dead in Burma, while aid agencies continue to agonise about the plight of the living. Disease, hunger and thirst are now the new threat to at least a million people left homeless by cyclone Nargis.
Presenter: Karen Percy
Speaker: Pierre-Andre Conod, Country Director, the International Committee Of The Red Cross in Rangoon.
KAREN PERCY: As the days go by, a clearer picture is emerging - not just of the devastation but of the junta's failure to deal with it.
BURMESE MAN: Big trees they fell on the street and it is very huge for us to clean up and I saw some soldier cutting up and moving it out of the tree but I wish they were more active.
KAREN PERCY: This Burmese man works for an international organisation based in Rangoon but did not want to be identified.
He told us how some of the locals are getting by at a time of water shortages and no power.
BURMESE MAN: They are using generators to pump the water to the water tanks so people are buying generators like they are buying groceries - those who can afford.
KAREN PERCY: What about those people who can't afford it? How are they getting by?
BURMESE MAN: There is no significant support to those who have lost their home. To those who don't have any money, to those who don't have any job, so support is not significantly made to those people.
KAREN PERCY: It's been a shock even for those who deal in disaster every day.
Pierre-Andre Conod heads up the operations of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Rangoon.
PIERRE-ANDRE CONOD: It was terrifying to see how the roofs of well-built houses were just blown away. If one imagines that in the worst affected area of the country, namely the delta area, something like 100 to 200 kilometres south of Rangoon, the houses are, for most of them, makeshift houses - they're not that well built. You can imagine that the disaster created might be really considerable.
KAREN PERCY: His local team has spent the past two days assessing the damage in the Irrawaddy delta.
He expects the team to report back soon. Then he's expecting to mount a full-scale humanitarian effort - taking food, shelter and medicines to those in need. And he's keen to see other aid agencies admitted to the country, under an agreement between the United Nations and Burma's military leaders.
But the UN's Bangkok office says some of its crisis specialists are still waiting to be granted visas.
And there are reports that the generals want to keep the visiting aid workers on a short leash for fear that they'll try to influence the referendum vote for a new constitution due on Saturday.
The election has been delayed in affected areas and will now be held on May the 24th. But Burma-based agencies are all too familiar with the junta's tendency to control their activities.
The Red Cross's Pierre-Andre Conod explains why:
PIERRE-ANDRE CONOD: There is always indeed a program with expatriate presence, you know, and expatriates are also somehow needed in order to direct the co-ordination and the direction of the way, I mean, the relief should be distributed.
So we are only hope to be able to overcome this at times. Also psychological hurdle, you know.
