Three planes loaded with 45 tons of relief supplies remained on the ground Thursday, waiting to fly to storm-ravaged Myanmar to provide a small dose of assistance amid a mushrooming humanitarian crisis.
The World Food Programme planes sat on runways in Bangladesh, the United Arab Emirates and Thailand as the organization awaited permission to land from Myanmar’s government, said Paul Risley, a spokesman for the organization in Bangkok, Thailand.
A fourth aircraft sat on the tarmac in Italy, awaiting clearance to deliver 20 tons of relief five days after Cyclone Nargis spawned widespread death and desperation in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma.
The official death toll in Myanmar is staggering: Myanmar’s military government says more than 22,000 people died when the killer cyclone battered country’s low-lying delta region over the weekend. The top U.S. diplomat in the country said the toll could top 100,000.
The four planes provide a potent symbol of a much-larger relief effort waiting to begin. Even as decomposing bodies litter ditches and fields, relief agencies say, the secretive military junta that governs Myanmar has been slow to issue visas to relief workers and grant relief flights permission to land. “It’s not been as good as we would have liked,” said John Holmes, the top United Nations humanitarian official. “It’s not been as good as it has been in other circumstances.”
