YANGON, Myanmar (Map, News) - Myanmar's military regime allowed in the first major international aid shipment Thursday, but it snubbed a U.S. offer to help cyclone victims struggling to recover from a tragedy of unimaginable scale.

Five days after the storm, the junta continued to stall on visas for U.N. teams and other foreign aid workers anxious to deliver food, water and medicine to survivors amid fears the death toll could hit 100,000.

Among those stranded in Thailand were 10 members of the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team. Air Force transport planes and helicopters packed with supplies also sat waiting for a greenlight.

"We are in a long line of nations who are ready, willing and able to help, but also, of course, in a long line of nations the Burmese don't trust," U.S. Ambassador Eric John told reporters in Thailand's capital, Bangkok.

"It's more than frustrating. It's a tragedy," he said. Each day of delay means "a lot more people suffering," he said.

Myanmar's isolationist regime issued an appeal for international assistance after winds of 120 mph and a storm surge up to 15 feet high pounded the Irrawaddy delta Saturday.

But the junta has been accused of dragging its feet despite emerging reports on entire villages submerged, bodies floating in salty water and children ripped from their parents arms.

"My children were crying all night. There is not enough food. There will be no food this evening," said Daw Thay, who took refuge in a monastery with her three children and her 99-year-old mother in a town 60 miles south of Yangon, the country's biggest city.

Daw Thay, 42, said monks were going without food so others could eat.

"We share what we have but there isn't enough. So they (the monks) give the food to the children and the old people first," she said.

In the swampy delta, a horrible stench rose from corpses and dead animals, bloated and floating in the water. Someone had written on a black asphalt road in Kongyangon village: "We are all in trouble. Please come help us." A few feet away, the desperate plea, "We're hungry."

Tired of waiting for help in Yangon, red-robed monks, other civilians and dozens of soldiers cleared piles of debris and toppled billboards from streets and cutting branches off uprooted trees.

"They've started doing the clean up themselves," Aye Chan Naing, chief editor of Democratic Voice of Burma, said as a light rain showered down. "They are volunteers."

Public transportation was slowly coming back to life in the city, with some trains operating, and cars formed lines three miles long to get rations of two gallons of gasoline.

The cyclone blew off the roof of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's dilapidated bungalow in Yangon and cut off its electricity, a neighbor said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. Suu Kyi, who received a Nobel Peace Prize for her pro-democracy activism, has been under house arrest for years.

More than 20,000 are known dead and tens of thousands more are listed as missing, and the U.N. estimates more than 1 million people are homeless in Myanmar, which also is known as Burma.

Four airplanes carrying high-energy biscuits, medicine and other supplies reached Yangon on Thursday, U.N. officials said. Two of four U.N. experts who flew in to assess the damage were turned back at the airport for unknown reasons, but the other two were allowed to enter, said John Holmes, the U.N. relief coordinator.

By rejecting the U.S. aid offer, the junta is refusing to take advantage of Washington's enormous ability to deliver aid quickly, which was evident during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen nations.

The first foreign military aid following that disaster reached the hardest-hit nation, Indonesia, two days later. The most significant help came when U.S. helicopters from the USS Abraham Lincoln began flying relief missions to isolated communities along the Indonesian coast.

It was the biggest U.S. military operation in Southeast Asia since the Vietnam War.

With the Irrawaddy delta's roads washed out and the infrastructure in shambles, large swaths of the region are accessible only by air, something few other countries are equipped to handle as well as the United States.

Tim Costello, chief executive of World Vision Australia, said that "it's certainly the case that the Americans, as they showed in the tsunami, have extraordinary capacity."

The U.S. government, which has strongly criticized the junta's suppression of pro-democracy activists, will have to convince the generals that Washington has no political agenda, Costello said.

"Clearly we all know the political context there, and I think it's going to take a little bit more time for a breakthrough," he said.

Gordon Johndroe, President Bush's national security spokesman, said the U.S. was working to gain permission to enter Myanmar.

One American official, Ky Luu, director of the U.S. office of foreign disaster assistance, created a stir by saying one option being considered was air-dropping aid without permission. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates quickly said he couldn't imagine that happening.

Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej of Thailand offered to negotiate on Washington's behalf to persuade Myanmar's government to accept U.S. aid.

France is arguing that the U.N. has the power to intervene without the junta's approval to help civilians under a 2005 agreement that the world body has a "responsibility to protect" people when governments fail to do it. That agreement did not mention natural disasters.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband asked Myanmar's junta to "lift all restrictions on the distribution of aid." Separately, Kouchner said France would make $3 million available to French aid groups operating in Myanmar.

The Association of Southeast Nations appealed to the international community to send relief supplies through Thailand.

"Please keep the help coming, keep the contributions coming, and if you have to, go to Thailand, park there and wait for redistribution from there," said ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan.

The U.S. military sent more humanitarian supplies and equipment to a staging area in Thailand on Thursday. A C-17 transport plane brought in water and food, joining the two C-130s already in place, Air Force spokeswoman Megan Orton said at the Pentagon. Another C-130 loaded with supplies was on its way, she said.

The U.S. Navy also has three ships participating in an exercise in the Gulf of Thailand that could help in a relief effort, including an amphibious assault ship with 23 helicopters.

China, Myanmar's closest ally, urged the junta to work with the international community.

The London-based human rights group Amnesty International said some donors were delaying aid for fear it would be siphoned off to the army. The World Food Program's regional director, Anthony Banbury, indicated the U.N. had similar concerns.

"We will not just bring our supplies to an airport, dump it and take off," he said.

The U.N. refugee agency said it was assembling a truck convoy to take supplies from Thailand to Yangon, but it would take days to put the shipment together and up to two weeks to reach victims.

Myanmar's state media said Cyclone Nargis killed at least 22,997 people and left 42,019 missing, mostly in the Irrawaddy delta. Shari Villarosa, who heads the U.S. Embassy in Yangon, said the number of dead could eventually exceed 100,000 because of illnesses.

Asked about the death estimate, Costello of World Vision said hours after arriving in Yangon, "That extraordinary volume of rain, of wave, of wind just crushing everything, snapping everything in its wake, that death toll I think could be conceivable." He said some 60,000 people were unaccounted for.

The World Health Organization received reports of malaria outbreaks in the worst-affected area, and said fears of waterborne illnesses from dirty water and poor sanitation was a concern.

Myanmar's state television Thursday showed the prime minister, Lt. Gen. Thein Sein, distributing food packages to the sick and injured in the delta and soldiers dropping food over villages. The date of the distribution was not given.

Although most Yangon residents were preoccupied with trying to restore their lives, activists wrote fresh graffiti on overpasses, including "X" marks - a symbol for voting "no" in a referendum Saturday on a new constitution. Voting has been postponed until May 24 in Yangon, some outlying areas and parts of the delta.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the junta to postpone the referendum entirely and "focus instead on mobilizing all available resources and capacity for the emergency response efforts."

Comments from Examiner Readers

5:58 AM MST on Sat., May. 10, 2008 re: "Myanmar junta hands out aid boxes with generals' names"

Dolly said:
The Burmese Government is accepted by the UN as OK !

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4:21 AM MST on Sat., May. 10, 2008 re: "Myanmar junta hands out aid boxes with generals' names"

Ed said:
The UN should stay out of this.Maybe better yet, get out of the USA!

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10:04 AM MST on Fri., May. 9, 2008 re: "Myanmar still will not accept US aid workers"

Good for Myanmar said:
Finally, a country who has enough pride not to ask for handouts! In these days, how often do you see that?

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1:58 PM MST on Thu., May. 8, 2008 re: "Official: UN plane lands in Myanmar with aid after cyclone"

Bill said:
The suffering in Burma is caused by the 'so-called' Burmese Government. We had military planes loaded with emergency aid supplies just waiting for clearance to land from the Burmese Govt....long before the idiots from the U.N. or amnesty Int. got their heads out of their butts to even thing about aid. The Burmese, (Myanmar) government is more concerned about it's political power than saving the lives of it's own citizens. Also, The U.N. is a scam, as proven with the "food for oil" program which lined the pockets of U.N. officials and Saddam Hussein with billions. They will now do little to nothing, while collecting billions of dollars in donations from countries that want to help.

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8:54 PM MST on Tue., May. 6, 2008 re: "First international aid reaches Myanmar after cyclone"

Albert B. Franklin said:
"The response to the cyclone is just the most recent example of the junta's failure to meet its people's basic needs. The regime has dismantled systems of agriculture and heathcare." Larua Bush However, does any of this reflect Myanmar's/Burma's either role in teslating their country or were others involved? If San Mateo County can find itself of being accused of telatizing royal Tongans, as their van was slammed into by a new high school graduate on 5 July 2006, then isn't it also possible Myanmar/Burma maybe falling victim to the same sort of scam? If, for argument's sake, someone teslated Hurricane Katrina, as it displaced a large segment of the black community of New Orleans, then what would stop them from doing the same sort of thing to Myanmar/Burma?

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11:36 AM MST on Tue., May. 6, 2008 re: "Myanmar cyclone death toll soars past 22,000: state radio"

Examiner Reader said:
When you build like this and have antique structures and are a hermit/kingdom/ buddhist nation of sheeple what do you expect?

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7:35 AM MST on Tue., May. 6, 2008 re: "Myanmar cyclone death toll soars past 22,000: state radio"

Examiner Reader said:
Thanks Jim- Lopez Island we need more bleeding hearts to send their congressman notes on how to read a book. There is not hatred it is fact. Many who come here care less about back home. You see them sloshing down booze after a long day at work. There is no unity from them not one of them will stand up and organize to help That is why the nation has a Junta for 50 years plus. This is an asian issue and China should play their role of good neighbor.

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11:23 PM MST on Mon., May. 5, 2008 re: "Official media: 10,000 dead in 1 town from Myanmar cyclone"

Jim...Lopez Island said:
It is really sad to see some of the more recent comments about not wanting to help out the Burmese people...I just got back from there and the situation before the cyclone was already one where most people lack basic things we take for granted here. Yes we should help them. For those that would like to educate themselves on Burmese issues I highly recommend reading the "Perfect Hostage" Helping is about compassion...not the negativity and hatred expressed it some of these comments.

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8:30 PM MST on Sun., May. 4, 2008 re: "Cyclone kills hundreds in Myanmar; junta response a concern"

Examiner Reader said:
There are many many Burmese with good jobs and businesses throughout the USA and the Washington region Let them send the money home to help, and do less beer drinking. every other sushi stand is owned by the Burmese.

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6:37 AM MST on Sun., May. 4, 2008 re: "UN official: 243 dead after powerful cyclone in Myanmar"

Examiner Reader said:
Let the rich Chinese take the stage, they suck the blood of Myanmar everyday along with the Indian and Thais. Its time we let the Chinese spend some money America needs to take care of their own. We are going broke fighting a war while others benefit

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6:35 AM MST on Sun., May. 4, 2008 re: "UN official: 243 dead after powerful cyclone in Myanmar"

Examiner Reader said:
Let them all eat sand. When America has any climate calamity no one sends a bottle water. We had the Midwest floods, and the Virginia tornado, not one scum embassy from anywhere sent a bottle of water

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6:23 AM MST on Sun., May. 4, 2008 re: "UN official: 243 dead after powerful cyclone in Myanmar"

Examiner Reader said:
Wow ! I wonder if those loudmouth-showoff Thai neighbors will show the compassion, that America and the world did for them when they was a Tsunami? Even though Burma is considered a pariah state I would like to see the US congress step up their compassion. After all they just gave Suu Kyi the socialist- marxist the congressional medal of freedom. Watch the Buddhist Thai closely now Money will come first

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7:51 AM MST on Sat., May. 3, 2008 re: "Cyclone knocks out electricity in much of Yangon"

Examiner Reader said:
I really appreciate to be provided with such kind of news. Actually, I've been looking for the answers for not being able to contact with my family in Yangon. Now I know the reason. And I really hope to get access to more detailed information later. Thank you so much.

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