Myanmar turns back Qatari cyclone rescue team

Myanmar's junta turned back a disaster rescue team that arrived in Yangon from Qatar because the flight only had permission to deliver aid supplies, an official paper said on Friday.

"Myanmar is not in a position to receive rescue and information teams from foreign countries at the moment," the government-run Myanma Ahlin newspaper said in a report on the aid operation slowly building up for survivors Cyclone Nargis.

"But at present Myanmar is giving priority to receiving relief aid and distributing them to the storm hit regions with its own resources," it said. The Qatar plane was one of 12 international relief flights that landed in the former capital on Thursday, the paper said. Outside frustration is mounting at delays by the generals in giving visas to aid workers and landing rights for flights, including those from the U.S. military, which has supply planes on standby in neighbouring Thailand.

The Pentagon has ordered four U.S. Navy ships now in Thailand on exercises to start steaming towards the former Burma's cyclone-striken Irrawaddy delta in the hope that the green light will eventually come. A steady flow of aid flights, including some from the United Nations but mainly from Asian governments, is now landing in Yangon.

Experts say it is woefully short of the massive relief operation needed for a disaster that has severely affected 1.5 million people. The official death toll still stands at nearly 23,000, although experts fear it could be as high as 100,000. The junta is holding a referendum on an army-drafted constitution on Saturday in all but the worst-affected parts of the country. Its opponents have suggested the delays are because it does not want an influx of foreigners before the vote.