RANGOON:UN chief Ban Ki-moon flew over the cyclone-ravaged landscape of Burma's heartland yesterday, touching down to learn from officials' briefings and conversations with storm victims of the misery that he hopes more foreign assistance can alleviate.
Before his helicopter tour of the stricken area, Mr Ban said he was bringing a "message of hope," to Burma's people. By the military government's count, some 78,000 people were killed by Cyclone Nargis on May 2nd, and another 56,000 are unaccounted for.
The firsthand look at the devastation left Mr Ban shaken, even though the areas he was brought to were far from the worst-hit.
"I'm very upset by what I've seen," he said, after a walk through a makeshift relief camp where 500 people huddled in blue tents at Kyondah village in Dedaye township, about 45 miles south-west of Rangoon, Burma's largest city.
In a meeting earlier with the prime minister, Lt Gen Thein Sein, Mr Ban stressed international aid experts should be rushed in because the crisis was too much for Burma to handle alone, according to a UN official at the talks. "The United Nations and all the international community stand ready to help to overcome the tragedy," Mr Ban said.
Burma's military regime has been keen to show it has the relief effort under control despite spurning the help of foreign disaster experts, and trotted out officials to give statistics-laden lectures to make their point.
But the UN says up to 2.5 million cyclone survivors face hunger, homelessness and potential outbreaks of deadly diseases, especially in the lower-lying areas of the Irrawaddy Delta close to the sea. It estimates that aid has reached only about 25 per cent of them.
Mr Ban is the only foreign leader so far allowed into the disaster zone. Following him will be representatives invited from 29 nations, including Japan, Singapore and Thailand. The group will visit the region today.
- (AP)