In a rare sign of agreement with international aid agencies, the junta sharply raised its toll from the May 2 disaster on Friday night to 77,738 dead and another 55,917 missing.
The news came on state TV, which aside from offering updated casualty figures has mainly shown footage of generals handing out food at the model tented villages.
People in Burma are snapping up bootleg video discs of bloated corpses, desperate refugees and ravaged villages to get a fuller picture of the situation.
"Burma television is useless," said one Yangon businessman who bought the underground VCDs because he wanted to see the raw, uncensored version of the storm that killed his brother in Labutta, one of the hardest-hit towns in the Irrawaddy delta.
The generals have been admitting a steady stream of aid flights to Yangon, including around four a day from the U.S. military, the generals' arch enemy.
However, aid agencies say only a fraction of the required relief is getting through to the inundated part of the delta - a stretch of land the size of Austria - and unless the situation improves, thousands more lives are at risk.
Given the junta's ban on foreign journalists and restrictions on the movement of most international aid workers, independent assessment of the situation is difficult.
With international concern and frustration mounting, a parade of envoys has been flying in to try to coax the generals out of their deep distrust of the outside world.
The latest is the U.N.' top humanitarian official, John Holmes, expected to arrive in Yangon on Sunday and meet Prime Minister Thein Sein, the fourth-highest ranking junta member.
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY?
Holmes will be carrying a third letter from U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to junta supremo Than Shwe, who has repeatedly ignored Ban's requests for a conversation, a spokeswoman said.
Ban is not the only one loosing patience.
France's U.N. ambassador said the junta was on the verge of a "crime against humanity", and dismissed claims by his Burma counterpart Paris was sending a warship to sit off the coast.
French envoy Jean-Maurice Ripert said the ship, Le Mistral, was operated by the French navy but was not a warship. It is carrying 1,500 tonnes of food and medicine as well as small boats, helicopters and field hospital platforms.
Three U.S. Navy vessels are already hovering off the coast ready to go in with relief supplies, but the Pentagon insists it will not do so until it gets the go-ahead from the Burma authorities.
