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YANGON, Myanmar - The cyclone death toll soared above 22,000 on Tuesday and more than 41,000 others were missing as the international community prepared to rush in aid after Asia's deadliest storm since 1991, state radio reported.
Up to 1 million people may be homeless after Cyclone Nargis, some villages have been almost totally eradicated and vast rice-growing areas are wiped out, the World Food Program said.
Some aid agencies reported their assessment teams had reached some areas of the largely isolated region but said getting in supplies and large numbers of aid workers would be difficult.
Images from state television showed large trees and electricity poles sprawled across roads and roofless houses ringed by large sheets of water in the Irrawaddy River delta region, which is regarded as Myanmar's rice bowl.
Relief efforts for the stricken area, mostly in the low-lying Irrawaddy River delta, have been difficult, in large part because of the destruction of roads and communications outlets by the storm. The first assistance from overseas arrived Tuesday from neighboring Thailand.Information Minister Kyaw Hsan said the military were "doing their best," but analysts said there could be political fallout for military rulers of the former Burma who pride themselves on their ability to cope with any challenge. Giving the first detailed account of the worst cyclone to hit Asia since 1991, when 143,000 people died in Bangladesh, Foreign Minister Nyan Win said on state television 10,000 people had died just in Bogalay, a town 50 miles southwest of Yangon.
“The losses have been much greater than we anticipated,” Thai Foreign Minister Noppadol Pattama said after a meeting with Myanmar’s ambassador to Bangkok. Myanmar's ambassador, Ye Win, declined to speak to reporters.
Urgent appealThe U.N. World Food Program, which was preparing to fly in food supplies, offered a grim assessment of the destruction: up to a million people possibly homeless, some villages almost totally destroyed and vast rice-growing areas wiped out. "We hope to fly in more assistance within the next 48 hours," WFP spokesman Paul Risley said in Bangkok. "The challenge will be getting to the affected areas with road blockages everywhere."
The country's ruling military junta, which has spurned the international community for decades, urgently appealed for foreign aid at a meeting Monday among Nyan Win and diplomats in Yangon.
Reflecting the scale of the disaster, the ruling military junta said it would postpone to May 24 a constitutional referendum in the worst-hit areas of Yangon and the sprawling Irrawaddy delta.
However, state TV said the May 10 vote on a charter, part of the army’s much-criticized “roadmap to democracy,” would proceed as planned in the rest of the Southeast Asian country where security forces violently cracked down on protests last year.
"From the reports we are getting, entire villages have been flattened and the final death toll may be huge," Mac Pieczowski, who heads the International Organization for Migration office in Yangon, said in a statement.
Based on a satellite map made available by the United Nations, the storm's damage was concentrated over about a 11,600-square mile area along the Andaman Sea and Gulf of Martaban coastlines — less than 5 percent of the country.
But the affected region is home to nearly a quarter of Myanmar's 57 million people.
Bush offers assistancePresident Bush urged Myanmar's military rulers on Tuesday to accept U.S. disaster response teams that so far have been kept out and said the United States stood ready to "do a lot more" to help after a devastating cyclone.
"The military junta must allow our disaster assessment teams into the country," Bush told reporters. He said he was prepared to make U.S. naval assets available to help in search and rescue efforts.
Shari Villarosa, the top American diplomat in Yangon, told NBC's Today show that the cyclone had knocked huge trees in the country's largest city.
"And it blew down a significant portion of them, some of these are 6, 8, 10 stories tall — huge trees, 6 feet, 5 feet in diameter. So they came down on roofs," she said.
Storm surgeThe cyclone triggered a massive storm surge that swept inland and left victims with nowhere to run, killing at least 10,000 people in one town alone.
"More deaths were caused by the tidal wave than the storm itself," Minister for Relief and Resettlement Maung Maung Swe told a news conference in the devastated former capital, Yangon, where food and water supplies are running low.
"Our biggest fear is that the aftermath could be more lethal than the storm itself," said Caryl Stern, who heads the U.N. Children's Fund in the United States. UNICEF said it had dispatched five assessment teams to three of the affected areas and lifesaving supplies were being moved into position. Other countries, from Canada to the Czech Republic, reacted quickly to the crisis with pledges of aid. The European Commission was providing $3.1 million in humanitarian aid while the president of neighboring China, Hu Jintao, promised assistance without offering details. The diplomats said they were told Myanmar welcomed international aid, including urgently needed roofing materials, medicine, water purifying tablets and mosquito nets. The Thais were sending a shipment of 9.9 tons of such supplies.
"The wave was up to 12 feet high and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages," he said, giving the first detailed description of the weekend cyclone. "They did not have anywhere to flee
The appeal for assistance was unusual for Myanmar's ruling generals, who have long been suspicious of international organizations and have closely controlled their activities. The wife of the U.S. president said her country was ready to pump aid into Myanmar for recovery efforts, but that the ruling junta must accept a U.S. disaster response team. First lady Laura Bush, who has been the administration's chief voice on human rights and political conditions in Myanmar, faulted the junta for proceeding with the constitutional referendum, and criticized government leaders for not sufficiently warning citizens about the storm.
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