Myanmar junta insists aid running smoothly

Myanmar's military government said yesterday its cyclone relief effort was moving along swiftly even as foreign powers warned of starvation and disease among up to 2.5 million people left destitute by the storm.

The EU's top aid official met government ministers in Yangon and urged them to allow in foreign aid workers and essential equipment to prevent more deaths. But his trip did not yield any breakthroughs.

Separately, the junta announced an overwhelm vote in favour of an army-backed Constitution in a referendum held after the cyclone despite calls for a delay in the light of the disaster. Nearly two weeks after the storm tore through the heavily populated Irrawaddy delta rice bowl - leaving up to 128,000 people dead - supplies of food, medicine and temporary shelter have been sent in dribs and drabs to devastated communities.

In the delta town of Bogalay, where around 10,000 people are thought to have died, people complained of forced labour and low supplies of food at state-run refugee centres.

The UN has said over half a million people may now be sheltering in temporary settlements.

The UN has also ramped up its estimate of the number of people in urgent need of aid to 2.5 million, and called for a high-level donors' conference to deal with the crisis.