Delayed visas stall cyclone aid to Burma

BANGKOK — Wounded and terrified survivors waited for help and international aid workers waited for visas, a deadly mix of political intrigue and bad timing that threatens tens of thousands of Burmese cyclone victims with a slow and painful death in the days ahead.

Burma’s military regime put the death toll yesterday at more than 22,000 people, with twice that number missing, mainly on the exposed Irrawaddy River delta.

Aerial images showed whole villages submerged and destroyed, leaving up to 1 million people homeless and vulnerable to hunger, disease and exposure. International and local relief agencies, medical teams, food convoys and clearance teams grappled with paperwork, debris-covered roads, swollen rivers and a lack of communication, unable to reach most victims along Burma’s worst-hit southern coast.

The U.N. World Food Program said it had begun distributing some of the 800 metric tons of relief supplies stockpiled in the country.

UNICEF began delivering medicine, first-aid kits and rehydration tablets.

When the cyclone hit, the United Nations had a staff of 1,650 on the ground, all but 79 of them local Burmese hires.

But bureaucratic delays and unfortunate timing continued to prevent other aid stockpiled in the region from reaching the victims.

“We have applied for visas, we have not received them yet,” senior U.N. aid official Rashid Khalikov told reporters at the United Nations in New York.

Mr. Khalikov acknowledged that the organization did not submit visa applications until yesterday — three days after the cyclone — because Monday was a Thai holiday.

The Burmese Embassy in Bangkok “has no clue how the U.N. operates. I am not making excuses but I would not say it is absolutely shocking,” he said.

In the former capital of Rangoon, soldiers from the repressive military regime helped clear rubble, while Buddhist monks and Catholic nuns wielded axes to remove fallen ancient trees that were once the city’s pride.

Coastal areas of the delta hit worst Saturday by the 120 mph winds and tidal surges of the cyclone remained out of reach for aid workers, isolated by flooding and road damage.

A C-130 military transport plane carrying government aid from neighboring Thailand flew into Rangoon, where an Associated Press reporter watched it unload rice, canned fish, water and dried noodles.

The goods — the first overseas aid to arrive in the stricken nation — were transferred to a helicopter, which Burmese military officers said would ferry them to the most stricken areas.

White House officials said yesterday that the U.S. will send more than $3 million to help cyclone victims, after an initial emergency contribution of $250,000.

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