YANGON, Myanmar — Aid agencies geared up Saturday to go into Myanmar’s cyclone-hit Irrawaddy delta after the country’s ruling junta vowed to open its doors to help ahead of an international donors meeting.
After weeks of stubbornly refusing assistance, Myanmar’s ruling generals have told the United Nations they are now willing to allow workers of all nationalities to help survivors of the storm that left about 78,000 people dead and another 56,000 missing.
The ability to assess the situation will be critical in securing pledges from foreign governments. The junta’s about-face was seen as a concession to get more aid when 45 potential donor nations meet today in Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city.
An estimate released Saturday by the U.N. said that although about 42 percent of the 2.4 million people affected by the storm had received some kind of emergency assistance, only 23 percent of the 2 million people living in the hardest-hit areas had been reached.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said Myanmar’s ruling generals had told him that international aid workers will be able “to freely reach the needy people,” a pledge the junta has not publicly acknowledged.
Ban made the comments during a trip Saturday to China’s earthquake zone before heading to Bangkok, Thailand.
Ban and the Thai prime minister inaugurated a new hub for relief efforts, a warehouse at Bangkok’s old international airport. Ban said authorities were planning two flights a day from there into Yangon.
On the first flight from the hub, UNICEF sent three mobile water treatment plants that can produce 10,000 liters of water a day to help 3,200 people.
The United Nations has launched an emergency appeal for $201 million. That figure will probably increase once disaster relief experts are able to survey the stricken Irrawaddy delta.
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