Tingplik Express

YANGON, Myanmar (TEN) -- Thousands of children in Myanmar will starve to death in two to three weeks unless food is rushed to them, an aid agency warned Sunday as an increasingly angry international community pleaded for approval to mount an all-out effort to help cyclone survivors.

A cyclone survivor reacts after receiving donated clothing and sheets in Myanmar's capital, Yangon.
The United Nations said Myanmar's isolationist ruling generals were even forbidding the import of communications equipment, hampering already difficult contact among relief agencies.

A U.N. situation report said Saturday that emergency relief from the international community had reached an estimated 500,000 people. But the regime insists it will handle distribution to victims of Cyclone Nargis.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has been unable to sway Myanmar's leaders by telephone, said he was sending U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes to Myanmar this weekend.

Holmes was expected to arrive Sunday evening in Myanmar's largest city, Yangon, said Amanda Pitt, a U.N. spokeswoman in Bangkok, the capital of neighboring Thailand.

"He's going at the request of the secretary-general to find out what's really going on the ground, to get a much better picture of how the response is going and ... to see how much we can help them scale up this response," Pitt said. Details of the visit, she said, were still being worked out.

State-run radio said the government has so far spent 20 billion kyat (about US$2 million; euro1.3 million) for relief work and has received millions of dollars (euros) worth of relief supplies from local and international donors. It said the government was distributing assistance promptly and efficiently to the affected areas.