Burmese officials today admitted that at least 15,000 people have been killed, and up to 30,000 were reported missing, after the devastating cyclone that struck Burma four days ago.

Nyan Win, the Burmese Foreign Minister, revised the death toll upwards once more in a rare appearance on state television today.

Until yesterday Burma's secretive military rulers had reported only a couple of hundred deaths, but today Mr Win revealed that 10,000 people died in just one town, Bogalay.

Foreign aid agencies already in the country have reported scenes of utter devastation, with corpses still littering the rice fields and desperate survivors without food or clean drinking water after four days, either without shelter at all or crammed into whatever buildings remain standing.

Burma's junta refused foreign aid after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, but this time the sheer scale of the slowly emerging disaster seems to have forced it to change its mind.

"We will welcome help . . . from other countries because our people are in difficulty," said Mr Win.

The generals have, however, turned down an offer from the US State Department of $250,000 (£125,000) in help and a disaster assistance team, suggesting that it remains selective about whom it accepts.

The refusal prompted a sharp rebuke from Laura Bush, the US first lady, who urged the generals not to hinder the relief effort. "The United States stands prepared to provide an assistance team and much-needed supplies to Burma, as soon as the Burmese Government accepts our offer," she said.

Cyclone Nargis ripped across Burma's agricultural heartland on Saturday with violent winds that reached speeds of 120mph (193km/h), destroying buildings and fields, toppling trees and washing away roads in the vital rice-growing area of the Irrawaddy delta, and flattening shanty towns and downing power and phone lines in the sprawling port city of Rangoon, Burma's former capital and home to 5 million people.

The town-by-town list of dead and missing announced by Mr Win showed 14,859 deaths in the rural and remote Irrawaddy delta, with about two thirds of the fatalities in one town alone - Bogalay, 90km (55 miles) southwest of Rangoon.

Most apparently died in the 12ft storm surge wave that accompanied the cyclone, it was reported.

There were 59 deaths reported in Rangoon itself, where today people could be seen in long queues for bottled water. Phones were down and there was still no electricity.

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