Aid agencies were appalled today as the Burmese junta declared the relief effort in the country over, just as foreign observers said the number of dead and missing in the wake of Cyclone Nargis could be higher than 200,000.

The international community was ramping up pressure on the government to allow foreign aid staff into the Irrawaddy Delta, the worst-afflicted area where up to 2.5 million people are thought to be in need of aid.

But Thein Sein, the Burmese Prime Minister, astonished the world by telling state television that the initial relief effort was over. "We have already finished our first phase of emergency relief. We are going onto the second phase, the rebuilding stage," he was quoted as saying.

The low-lying region was lashed by further tropical downpours today, turning already damaged roads to mud and deepening the misery of those clinging to survival almost two weeks after the cyclone hit.

Foreign reporters who have managed to enter the area say there is little sign of an aid effort by the government. Survivors remain without fresh water and have only meagre supplies of rice, while the muddy banks of the delta are lined with swollen, rotting corpses.

Burma state television sharply raised its official death toll today to 77,738, with 55,917 missing. That was double the esimte from the previous day, although independent observers put the toll much higher, with the International Red Cross estimating at least 128,000 dead.

British officials said the number of dead and missing could be upwards of 200,000.

The European Union’s top aid official, Louis Michel, met ministers in the capital Rangoon yesterday and urged them to admit foreign aid workers and essential equipment to keep the death toll from rising. He was due to leave the country today, without yet having been allowed access to the affected areas.

The paranoid and isolationist military regime is accepting some foreign aid but has so far prohibited all but a few of the staff needed to coordinate the vast relief effort from entering the country. Those who have been allowed entry have largely been confined to Rangoon, agencies report.

“Relations between Myanmar and the international community are difficult,” he said. “But that is not my problem.The time is not for political discussion. It’s time to deliver aid to save lives.”

Britain’s envoy to the UN, Mark Malloch Brown, castigated the junta for leaving the destitute survivors of the cyclone to suffer.

"We are way behind the curve compared to any other international disaster in recent memory," he said. "I cannot recall a relief operation where, at least the international response has been subjected to such delays."

But the ruling generals, fearful that international involvement will loosen their vice-like grip on power, are signalling they will not budge from their position.

Yesterday, the state newspaper New Light of Myanmar said the people "will not rely too much on international assistance and will reconstruct the nation on a self-reliance basis".

But in the delta town of Bogalay, where around 10,000 people are thought to have died, people complained of forced labour and low supplies of food at state-run refugee centres.

“They have to break stones at the construction sites. They are paid K1,000 ($1) per day but are not provided any food,”, said Ko Hla Min, who lost nine family members in the storm.

Underlining where its priorities lay, the junta declared an overwhelming vote in favour of a constitution which will cement its stranglehold on the country, in a referendum held on May 10 despite calls for a delay in the light of the disaster.

According to official results, turnout was above 99 percent and more than 92 percent approval of the charter, which gives the army a quarter of all seats in parliament, control of key ministries and the right to suspend the constitution at will. Areas affected by the cyclone are to vote later this month.

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