Two more American aid flights were due to leave for cyclone-hit Burma on Tuesday where the reclusive military government is keeping most foreign aid workers away from the devastated Irrawaddy delta.
Local staff for international relief agencies are stretched to breaking point and facing tighter restrictions on their ability to deliver the trickle of foreign aid flowing in to 1.5 million survivors facing hunger and disease.
Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said its first cargo plane loaded with medical supplies landed in the cyclone-hit former capital, Yangon, on Mondayn but it was facing "increasing constraints" imposed on its staff in the delta.
"In Bogalay for instance, the MSF team is unable to provide as much assistance as they could to respond to the enormous needs in terms of food and medical care," the aid group said of one devastated township where at least 10,000 people were killed.
Tens of thousands of people throughout the delta are crammed into monasteries, schools and other buildings after arriving in towns that were on the breadline even before the disaster.
Lacking food, water and sanitation, they face the threat of killer diseases such as cholera. Heavy rain was forecast for the delta this week, threatening more misery for survivors.
One Yangon businessman just back from a personal aid mission to Bogalay said the army was appropriating aid.
"There are still some villages in the worst-hit areas that nobody has got to," the man, in his late 30s, told Reuters.
"Around Bogalay, private donors are not allowed to distribute their assistance to the victims themselves. We had to hand over what we had."
"ISOLATED OR CALLOUS"
The junta has welcomed "aid from any nation" but has made it very clear it does not want outsiders distributing it in the areas worst hit by Cyclone Nargis, which struck 11 days ago.
