BANGKOK -- Cholera began to emerge in Myanmar's devastated villages yesterday as desperate survivors were forced to drink contaminated water from flooded areas where thousands of decaying bodies were floating.
It was the latest horrific problem to hit the country in the aftermath of a catastrophic cyclone that is believed to have killed more than 100,000 people and destroyed the homes of another 1.5 million.
Myanmar's military regime was continuing to hamper the relief effort, delaying its approval of relief flights and dragging its heels on entry visas for foreign aid workers. "It's a huge frustration," said Tony Banbury, head of Asian operations at the World Food Program, the United Nations food agency.
"There are a large number of people in desperate need, the resources are available and we're being prevented from distributing it for artificial reasons," he said.
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"A million human beings are paying the price."
Almost a week after the cyclone smashed through Myanmar's rice-producing heartland, many of the survivors are dying because aid has not reached them, relief workers say.
Riots and violence were continuing to erupt as the survivors fought each other for food. "There are increasing reports of violent attacks against people who have water and food," said Andrew Kirkwood, director of Myanmar operations for Save the Children.
Aid agencies are worried about potential attacks on their shipments of food and water to the epicentre of the disaster. In one case, a truckload of food was delayed by a day because of fears that it did not have enough security to protect it from desperate mobs of survivors.
"Panicked crowds are fighting over what little food there is," said Paul Risley, a WFP spokesman. "There are continuing reports of civil instability."
Several aid flights landed at Rangoon airport yesterday after waiting for two days for permission to enter Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. But relief agencies are still trying to persuade the military junta to permit an "air bridge," a massive airlift of aid supplies, similar to the one that was crucial in saving lives after the tsunami in Indonesia in 2004.
So far the military regime has failed to approve an air bridge, and time is running out. "If we're not given the necessary permissions, we'll have to scale back," Mr. Banbury said.
Some donor countries, including the United States and France, are so frustrated by the regime's restrictions on foreign aid that they are considering air-dropping supplies into Myanmar without permission.
Fuel and transportation shortages are another huge problem. Lineups of cars at Rangoon's gas stations are two or three kilometres long. Many of the cyclone survivors are reachable only by boat, but 80 per cent of the boats in the region were destroyed by the cyclone, Mr. Kirkwood said.
In seven of the worst-hit townships in the Irrawaddy River delta, about 90 per cent of all homes were destroyed, and each township had a population of 100,000 to 200,000 people, he said.
The survivors needed supplies of drinking water within 72 hours of the cyclone to avoid dehydration, but most are still waiting for aid. "Every day that goes by without aid, the toll will rise," he said.
Early estimates indicate 20 per cent of children in the most devastated areas are suffering from diarrhea, and the situation could worsen, Osamu Kunii, Unicef's chief of health and nutrition in Rangoon, told The Associated Press.
About 5,000 square kilometres have been flooded as a result of the cyclone, and 24 million people have been left without electricity or running water.
More than 600 villages were destroyed by flooding from the cyclone, and thousands of decaying bodies are piling up around islands and waterfronts in the river delta, according to an eyewitness report from Myanmar by a correspondent for The Irrawaddy, a magazine published by Myanmar exiles in Thailand. In one village of 400 inhabitants, only four people survived, the report said.
The survivors are facing the threat of cholera and other diseases. "The cholera outbreak has begun," one medical worker told the magazine. "People have nothing to drink so they drink water from the creeks and rivers. So that is how the outbreak began. These waterways are dirty because they are littered with bodies and animals. The survivors know the water is dirty, but they have no other choice and have had to drink the dirty water."
Water purification tablets are unlikely to help because much of the water supply has been contaminated by saltwater, Dr. Kunii said.
In Rangoon, the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is living without electricity and without a roof on her house, according to a report yesterday.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate is reported to be using candles at night in the home where she is being held under house arrest.
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