International Aid Agencies Start Distributing Food In Cyclone-hit Myanmar

BANGKOK: International relief agencies have started distributing essential items to victims of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, with the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) taking the lead by airlifting disaster relief supplies from across the Asian region.

Chris Kaye, WFP Country Director for Myanmar, said the agency began distributing food yesterday in cyclone-stricken areas in Yangon.

He said reports from assessment teams indicated disastrous damage to homes and shelters in rice-grown areas in the coastal region and rising death toll.

Kaye said additional truckloads of WFP food are being dispatched today to Labutta Township, the hardest-hit area in the Ayeryarwaddy Delta region.

"We are in close contact with the government on the response. So far, the government has provided some valuable cooperation. In order to meet the needs of the people badly-affected by the disaster, much more cooperation is needed in the short-term," he said in a statement.

WFP said it now has more than 800 tonnes of food stocks available in WFP warehouses in Yangon and will deliver the food resources to all areas in need, including the Ayeryawaddy Division, the largest and hardest-hit of the five major divisions affected by the cyclone.

WFP will airlift additional food supplies, including high-energy biscuits, into Myanmar as soon as possible as death tolls rise to more than 22,000.

Tony Banbury, Asia Regional Director for WFP, said WFP and other emergency response agencies must be able to plan, assess and operate in a challenging emergency environment all at the same time.

WFP said it has taken initial steps to make emergency funding, disaster relief supplies and food stocks from across the Asian region available for use in responding to the cyclone but will need further international assistance to meet the extensive needs of the victims.

An initial emergency operation, launched yesterday and valued at US$500,000, will fund immediate airlifts of food aid and cover initial emergency response staff deployments in Myanmar, said WFP, the world's largest humanitarian agency which supplies food to 90 million poor people a year.

Another international aid agency, Mdecins Sans Fronlres (MSF), said its team in Yangon had started emergency response, including distributng food, plastic sheets and chlorination of water.

In Daala and Twante, the two townships with a total population of 300,000, MSF teams saw 80 per cent destruction of houses in certain pockets and up to a metre high floodwaters.

MSF, which is treating more than 16,000 patients for HIV/AIDS, and has more than 8,000 patients on antiretroviral treatment (ART), said it was concerned some of its patients may have treatment interruptions, either because they cannot get access to clinics or they have lost their medicines in the cyclone.

The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) said about 130 of its technical and operations staff continued to travel to the the cyclone-hit areas to identify greatest threats to children and women and to deliver much-needed supplies.

Its executive director Ann M. Veneman said Unicef water and sanitation experts are also concerned the breakdown in power supplies and sanitation systems may lead to high risk of infections and water-borne diseases such as cholera and dysentery. (Bernama)