Tsunami-style aid effort awaits Myanmar green light

By Darren Schuettler

BANGKOK (Reuters) - The ships, aircraft, money and people are slowly getting into place for a 'tsunami-style' international aid operation for cyclone-ravaged Myanmar.

Now all they need is government permission.

While aid trickles into the former Burma 10 days after Cyclone Nargis, relief agencies say the storm's 1.5 million survivors in the hardest-hit Irrawaddy delta are getting only a fraction of the food, water and medicines they need.

The World Food Program (WFP) said it only had 10 percent of the staff and equipment it needed inside the army-ruled country.

"We think we need to be moving 375 tonnes of food a day down into the affected areas. We are doing less than 20 percent of that," WFP spokesman Marcus Prior told a news conference.

The agency, which is flying food aid into the former capital Yangon and using local staff to distribute it, was "essentially operating by remote control", he said.

"It puts enormous pressure on the staff that we do have in the field. Although it is do-able, it's not sustainable and it's not do-able on the scale that is necessary," Prior said.

The military, which has ruled for 46 years, has welcomed "aid from any nation" but has made it very clear it does not want an influx of foreign experts or equipment distributing it.  Continued...