Burma's junta took diplomats on a tour of the storm-ravaged Irrawaddy delta on Saturday as its toll of dead and missing soared above 133,000 people, making Cyclone Nargis one of the most devastating ever to hit Asia.
In the last 50 years, only two Asian cyclones have exceeded Nargis in terms of human cost - a 1970 storm that killed 500,000 people in neighbouring Bangladesh, and another that killed 143,000 in 1991, also in Bangladesh.
However, with an estimated 2.5 million people clinging to survival in the delta, and the military government refusing to admit large-scale outside relief, disaster experts say Nargis' body count could yet rise dramatically.
British officials say the actual toll may already be more than 200,000.
Cases of cholera, endemic to much of Burma, have been found although the outbreaks are no more than would normally be seen at this time of year, health officials said.
Meanwhile, the military, which has ruled unchecked for the last 46 years, continues to insist it is capable of handling aid distribution, seemingly out of fear an influx of foreigners might loosen its vice-like grip on power.
With heavy tropical downpours continuing to hamper the aid effort on Saturday, the generals took Yangon-based diplomats into the delta to see the army's relief operations, although it was expected to be a stage-managed and highly sanitised trip.
One envoy who went on a similar tour of a storm-hit district of Yangon, the former capital, described the neat rows of tents on display as "happy camps".
In the delta, the junta will have to work much harder to keep the diplomats away from the destitute.
Near the town of Kunyangon this week, columns of men, women and children stretched for miles alongside the road, begging in the mud and rain for scraps of food or clothing from the occasional passing aid vehicle.
"The situation has worsened in just two days," one aid volunteer said as children mobbed his vehicle, their grimy hands reaching through the window for something to eat.
Many storm refugees are crammed into monasteries and schools and are being fed and watered by local volunteers and private donors who have taken matters into their own hands, sending in trucks laden with clothes, biscuits, dried noodles and rice.
DEATH TOLL SOARS
