Fighting for their lives with only meagre supplies of food, clean water and medical aid reaching them, the two million Burmese left homeless by Cyclone Nargis may face a fresh pounding by the elements.

Citing an alarming new forecast by the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre (JTWC), the United Nations disaster response arm has warned that a new cyclone may currently be forming above Burma and could make landfall within the next 24 hours.

The forecast came as the Red Cross revised upwards its death toll estimate, announcing that as many as 127,990 may have died in the catastrophe.

Giving its warning, the Hawaiian based JTWC indicated that the storm was forming over the Burmese capital, which is acting as the nerve centre for whatever outside aid work has been sanctioned by the junta.

Although the UN spokeswoman stressed that the forecast does not make inevitable a second onslaught of devastation, she described the threat as "terrible".

The international army of aid workers waiting for entry permits in Bangkok said they feared a "severe collapse" of existing efforts in the storm-ravaged Irrawaddy Delta if another storm strikes.

Although it has provided a critical source of clean water at a vital moment, the torrential rain that has fallen on Burma over recent days has already caused havoc for fragile communications and roads.

Aid co-coordinators working outside Burma’s strictly-policed borders said that they had been out of touch with their opposite numbers in Rangoon for most of the day.

The makeshift shelters that are currently the only thing standing between tens of thousands of people and the lashing rain, said a spokesman for the NGO WorldVision, would be particularly at risk from a second round of powerful storms.

"It’s already an incredibly difficult aid operation with huge logistical problems to overcome. A storm would create a new catastrophe," said Chris Webster.

Meanwhile, the Red Cross announced today that the death toll in the cyclone could be anywhere between 68,833 and 127,990.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies says in a situation report on Burma that the total affected population is between 1.64 million and 2.51 million.

They noted that "official government casualty figures remain significantly lower". The junta says 34,273 people were killed and 27,838 are missing since the May 2-3 cyclone.

The Red Cross figure is the highest reported so far. The UN has said the number of dead could be between 60,000 and 100,000.

Meanwhile, foreign governments continued today to press the Burmese authorities to allow foreigners to be allowed into the country to help administer the aid that is currently being inexpertly managed by the military.

In a small concession to that mounting pressure, Burma agreed to attend a meeting of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). Thailand’s foreign minister told The Times that Asean’s ability to broker a solution to the Burmese issue was a test of the organisation’s relevance.

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