New Zealand 18 May 2008
Foreign diplomats say they saw huge devastation in the Irrawaddy delta of Myanmar during a tightly controlled official tour of the cyclone ravaged district.
Helicopters took 70 diplomats to different parts of the delta, where Cyclone Nargis struck more than two weeks ago.
Myanmar's junta is under heavy criticsm for refusing to allow in significant numbers of international aid workers and operations.
Bernard Delpuech of the European Commission Humanitarian Office in Yangon, says the tour was useful to catch the magnitude of the devastation.
He says he now expects the recovery to take much longer than six months or a year.
Myanmar's government has updated the death toll to 77,738 people dead and another 55,917 missing. Estimates by international aid agencies are much higher.
Some 2,500,000 people need food, water and shelter.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says the disaster is becoming a "man-made catastrophe" and the military regime should be held to account for its negligence.
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