Burma aid feared too late

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NEW YORK — U.N. humanitarian officials yesterday warned they might already be too late to prevent a "second wave" of deaths in cyclone-ravaged Burma from malaria, diarrhea and other diseases that will ravage a population weakened by exposure and hunger.

Burma's military government has begun to issue a small number of visas to foreign relief workers, but U.N. officials say they need much more to immediately deploy logistical and aid specialists as well as emergency supplies to fend off a looming crisis.

"We are at a critical point," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. "Unless more aid gets into the country very quickly, we will face an outbreak of infectious diseases that could dwarf today's crisis."

He said he called on Burma's leaders to "put people's lives first."

The U.S. military commander of the Pacific, Adm. Timothy J. Keating, met yesterday with military leaders in Burma for the first time, examining maps of the cyclone-ravaged Irrawaddy Delta as the first flight of American disaster-aid arrived.

Adm. Keating and other U.S. military personnel "met some Burmese officials, including the deputy foreign minister" at Rangoon's international airport, "and they gathered together and looked at maps," a U.S. official said, asking to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak for attribution.

They discussed geographical features, logistics and the suffering of survivors on the stricken Irrawaddy River Delta, where more than 30,000 people were killed and about 40,000 were missing in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis.

The May 3 cyclone brought murderous rain, wind and tidal swells ashore from the Bay of Bengal onto the densely populated river delta southwest of Rangoon.

American troops unpacked 14 tons of supplies, described as including mosquito nets, blankets and water, from a C-130 U.S. military cargo plane in an operation dubbed "Joint Task Force Caring Response." Burmese hauled the aid away in army trucks. No U.S. or other foreign officials were allowed to supervise its distribution.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) planned to fly two more C-130s loaded with emergency aid into Rangoon tomorrow.