Eyewitness report from disaster-struck region

Burma has rejected the need for foreign aid workers to help with the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis and has turned back a rescue team today, prompting a furious response from the UN and the international community.

Despite the increasing momentum of the disaster, the junta said today that the best way the world could help its nation was to just send in material rather than personnel.

The regime then urged its citizens to vote for an army-drafted constitution in Saturday's referendum that made no mention of the estimated 1.5 million people clinging to survival a week after the cyclone.

“Myanmar is not in a position to receive rescue and information teams from foreign countries at the moment,” a government-run newspaper said.

It added: “But at present Myanmar is giving priority to receiving relief aid and distributing them to the storm-hit regions with its own resources.”

The UN expressed astonishment at the junta’s resistance to foreign help, which it said was “unprecedented” in the history of humanitarian relief.

Paul Risley, a spokesman for the UN World Food Programme in Bangkok, said

there was no hope of acquiring visas in Bangkok until Monday because the embassy had closed for a Thai holiday.

“The frustration caused by what appears to be a paperwork delay is unprecedented in modern humanitarian relief efforts,” Mr Risley said.

Meanwhile a virtual army of relief groups is grouping in Thailand, poised to rush into Burma as soon as permission is granted.

Earlier, one relief flight was sent back after landing in Rangoon from Qatar because it carried a search and rescue team and media who had not received permission to enter the country.

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