Survivors eat dinner in their home which was damaged by cyclone Nargis, in Bogalay, southwest of Yangon May 7, 2008.
(REUTERS/Stringer)
Burma will accept foreign aid but distribute relief itself, an official newspaper said on Friday, after a disaster rescue team from Qatar that arrived in Yangon on an aid flight was turned back.
"Burma is not in a position to receive rescue and information teams from foreign countries at the moment," the government-run Myanma Ahlin newspaper said in a report on the aid operation slowly building up for survivors of Cyclone Nargis.
"But at present Burma is giving priority to receiving relief aid and distributing them to the storm-hit regions with its own resources," the newspaper said.
The Qatar plane was one of 12 international relief flights that landed in the former capital on Thursday, it said.
Outside frustration is mounting at delays by the generals in giving visas to aid workers and landing rights for flights, including those from the U.S. military, which has supply planes on standby in neighbouring Thailand.
Survivors of last Saturday's cyclone have largely been fending for themselves in the swampy delta.
"They are gone. They are gone," U Thein, who lost her 8-year-old son and 3-month-old daughter in the cyclone, whispered in her village near hard-hit Labutta town in the delta.
Around her, in hushed tones, villagers say more than 100 of their friends and relatives were killed in Saturday's carnage. The sea surge and 120 mph (190 kmh) winds ripped the tiny village apart, tearing down coconut groves and ripping the roofs off buildings, including the local primary school.
Scores of trees block pathways or balance precariously on top of the few buildings left standing.
Besides the cawing of crows and gentle weeping of the destitute, the only sound is the hammering of nails as villagers desperately try to rebuild their homes in the malaria-infested swamplands.
No soldiers or government agencies have turned up to help.
"We have to get shelter. We have to get shelter," said San Myint. She and her brother have been sawing and hammering since dawn to repair their shattered home. "The mosquitoes are eating us at night," she says. "But we were lucky. We survived."
The official death toll still stands at nearly 23,000, although experts fear it could be as high as 100,000.
