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Pressure mounts on Burma government
12.05.08The Burmese government is under increasing international pressure as aid agencies warned that the death toll following the cyclone disaster could reach 1.5 million.
Oxfam said the stricken country faced a public health catastrophe unless clean water and sanitation was quickly provided.
The military junta have been criticised for not allowing emergency supplies and skilled aid workers into the secretive South East Asian country quickly enough.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband blamed the "malign neglect" of the Burmese regime for turning the disaster into a "humanitarian catastrophe of genuinely epic proportions".
An estimated 100,000 have already perished in the disaster but Oxfam warned this figure could multiply 15-fold.
Aid is continuing to trickle into the country, with the Red Cross confirming a total of 10 flights containing emergency supplies will have landed in the capital Rangoon.
In a further setback, a Red Cross boat carrying emergency supplies in the Irrawaddy Delta was damaged after hitting a submerged obstacle under the waterline.
International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander confirmed that a British government assessment team had been allowed into the country.
Sarah Ireland, Oxfam's regional director for South East Asia said: "With the likelihood of 100,000 or more killed in the cyclone there are all the factors for a public health catastrophe which could multiply that death toll by up to 15 times in the coming period."
Mr Miliband criticised Burma's response to the disaster, telling BBC1's The Politics Show: "A natural disaster is turning into a humanitarian catastrophe of genuinely epic proportions in significant part because of the malign neglect of the regime. The basic point is that the scale of the response inside the country is so far inadequate to the scale of the disaster."
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