BANGKOK - UN AGENCIES using Bangkok as a hub for the relief effort in Myanmar said yesterday there was now more cooperation from the junta and a certain 'momentum and rhythm' to the relief effort for more than two million people affected by Cyclone Nargis. But the World Food Programme (WFP) said its relief effort, while improved, was running at just over 30 per cent of requirements - up from around 20 per cent last week.
No outbreak of disease had been reported so far, beyond the normal incidence of malaria, dengue, diarrhoea and some cases of cholera that were being treated in Yangon hospitals, the World Health Organisation said.
The WFP said more than two weeks after the devastating cyclone, it had managed to dispatch enough food to feed more than 250,000 people in affected areas.
The agency had managed to fly in 13 cargo shipments and was using Bangkok's old Don Muang international airport as a hub at the weekend.
Since the cyclone hit Myanmar on May 3, the WFP had purchased enough rice inside Myanmar to feed more than 1.5 million people with a two-week ration.
The agency had hired three boats, a barge and a tugboat in the Irrawaddy delta to transport supplies. Field offices had been set up in the towns of Laputta and Bogalay.
But 'immediate food assistance' was still needed for around 750,000 people, WFP spokesman Marcus Prior said.
'There is progress, but it is still slow and insufficient. We need about 375 tonnes of food per day,' he said.
Ms Amanda Pitt, spokesman for the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), said that according to increasingly detailed reports from assessment teams of various agencies, some 150,000 homeless people are currently in 120 temporary shelters - both official camps and spontaneous shelters - in the disaster zone.
And there were also signs of more cooperation from the junta, she said.
Mr John Sparrow of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said there had been a 'significant increase' in the number of its flights into Yangon, with more than 300 tonnes of relief supplies flown in aboard 26 flights since the disaster.
About 230 tonnes of supplies would be flown in this week, he said.
'There is a momentum and rhythm to the pipeline,' he said, adding that it was 'necessary for all organisations to think in a flexible way' in dealing and coordinating with Myanmar's government.
The Red Cross is supplying the relief effort mostly out of Kuala Lumpur. Once the supplies reach Yangon, Myanmar's Red Cross takes over.
A Red Cross statement said yesterday: 'From distribution points in Yangon, Myanmar Red Cross volunteers have worked tirelessly to distribute more than 180,000 water purification tablets, 28,000 litres of clean drinking water, 23,000 items of clothing and 12,000 jerry cans to tens of thousands of cyclone survivors in affected areas, including Laputta and Bogale.
'The work of these Red Cross volunteers is all the more remarkable given that many of them have been personally affected by Nargis.'
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