Source: BBC NEWS

The death toll from Burma's devastating cyclone has now risen to more than 22,000, state media have said.

Some 41,000 are also missing three days after Cyclone Nargis hit the country, causing a huge tidal surge to sweep inland, according to state radio.



The report came as aid agencies begin what they expect to be a major relief operation to help tens of thousands left without clean water and shelter.



Burma's government has been criticised over its handling of the crisis.

A number of Burmese nationals and some foreigners have said they had not been properly warned by the country's military leaders about the approaching storm.

Some witnesses have also said the government's response to the disaster has so far been slow and inadequate.



US President George W Bush has urged the military to open up to American aid, saying his country was ready to use its navy "to help find those who have lost their lives, to help find the missing, to help stabilize the situation".

"But in order to do so, the military junta must allow our disaster assessment teams into the country," he said.



Mr Bush was speaking as he signed legislation awarding the top US civilian honour, the Congressional Gold Medal, to the detained Burmese pro-democracy leader and Nobel laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi.

Earlier, Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) criticised the junta for pressing ahead with a constitutional referendum despite the cyclone.



Horrific scenes

State media reported on Tuesday that 22,464 people had now been confirmed as dead and an additional 41,054 people missing as a result of the cyclone.

Almost all of the deaths occurred in the Irrawaddy river delta region, where more were killed by the tidal wave than the cyclone itself, Minister for Relief and Resettlement Maung Maung Swe told reporters in Rangoon.





"The wave was up to 12ft (3.5m) high and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages," he said. "They did not have anywhere to flee."

Some 95% of the homes in the city of Bogalay in the Irrawaddy delta were destroyed and most of its 190,000 residents are now homeless, he added.



The neighbouring cities of Labutta and Pyapon have also been badly affected. A doctor in Labutta told the BBC that half of the city had vanished and dozens of surrounding villages washed away.

Satellite images released by the US space agency, Nasa, showed virtually the entire coastal plain of the country under water, destroyed roads, downed power lines and flattened houses.

One of the few foreign aid agencies permitted to work inside Burma, World Vision, has described scenes of horror in the affected regions, with rice fields strewn with bodies and desperate survivors without food or shelter.

"They saw the dead bodies from the helicopters, so it's quite overwhelming," Kyi Minn, an adviser to World Vision's office, told the AFP news agency.

The director for the World Food Programme in Burma, Chris Kaye, said information about the destruction in the Irrawaddy Delta was still emerging, but it was clear it was on a very large scale.

"We have a major humanitarian catastrophe in our hands. The numbers of people in need are still to be determined, but I'm sure we're talking of hundreds and thousands," he told the BBC.

Aid appeal

International aid agencies and the United Nations have begun a major relief operation to help the hundreds of thousands of survivors left homeless by the cyclone.

The UN World Food Programme said its food aid had begun to reach people in and around Rangoon. Additional truckloads of food will be dispatched on Wednesday to Labutta, which it said was the area hardest hit.

It said many of the coastal areas in the Irrawaddy delta remained cut off and isolated due to extensive flooding and road damage.

The WFP said it had more than 800 tonnes of food available in its warehouses in Rangoon and would airlift additional supplies into Burma as soon as possible.

Thailand has already flown in some aid, India is sending two naval ships, and Bangladesh has said it will fly food and water purification tablets to Rangoon on Wednesday. Many other countries have promised further assistance.





Rashid Khalikov from the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told reporters in New York that hundreds of thousands of people were in urgent need of shelter, plastic sheeting, water purification, emergency health kits, cooking sets and food.



He said UN agencies were emptying their aid stockpiles in the region and had teams ready to go into Burma, but warned that they were being delayed by visa restrictions.

Mr Khalikov said the UN was urging Burma to waive the requirement for UN staff to have entry visas as the governments of Iran and Pakistan did after similar natural disasters.

Referendum delay

Correspondents say Burma, isolated and impoverished, has long been wary of the international community.

Doubts remain about how much access the government will give to aid workers and there are also concerns about the logistics of reaching remote areas cut off from the outside world, they say.



Burma's leaders have said they will accept external help, in a move that correspondents say could reflect the scale of the disaster.

"The task is very wide and extensive and the government needs the co-operation of the people and well-wishers from at home and abroad," Information Minister Kyaw Hsan was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying on Tuesday.



"We will not hide anything. Please ask the people not to be duped by rumours or fabrication," he said, adding that $4.5m of disaster aid had been set aside.



Burmese state television reported on Tuesday the government had decided to postpone to 24 May the referendum on a new constitution in areas worst-hit by the cyclone - including Rangoon and the Irrawaddy delta.



But it said that the vote initially planned for 10 May would proceed as planned in the rest of the country.











Deadliest recent storms

Hurrcane Katrina , US, 2005 - at least 1,836 dead
Orissa cyclone , 1999, Northern India - at least 10,000 dead
Hurricane Mitch , 1998, Central America - at least 11,000 dead
Tropical storm Thelma , 1991, Philippines - 6,000 dead
Bangladesh cyclone , 1991 - about 138,000 dead
Bhola cyclone , 1970 - at least 300,000 dead

Source: BBC NEWS