The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon set off on a helicopter tour of Burma's Irawaddy Delta today after a direct appeal to the country's military junta to stop blocking international aid for the victims of Cyclone Nargis.

The cyclone struck three weeks ago, leaving at least 134,000 dead or missing. Aid workers say the real death toll may be higher than the 78,000 officially acknowledged.

Burma's ruling generals have allowed in some aid flights but are refusing to allow a full-scale international relief effort. The United Nations says that at least two million Burmese need urgent assistance but only a quarter of those have yet received any aid from abroad.

Making the first trip to Burma by a UN leader in more than four decades, Mr Ban said that he had come bearing a “message of hope” after the tragedy.

“I’m quite confident we will be able to overcome this tragedy. I’ve tried to bring a message of hope to your people,” he said as he made an offering at the country’s holiest Buddhist shrine, the Shwedagon Pagoda.

“At the same time, I hope your people and government can coordinate the flow of aid, so the aid work can be done in a more systematic and organised way. The UN and the whole international community stand ready to help you overcome this tragedy."

Mr Ban then left on an inspection tour of the Irawaddy Delta, which bore the brunt of Burma's worst natural disaster. Burmese officials said that Mr Ban would stop stop in the towns of Bogalay and Labutta, both hard hit by the storm.

Tomorrow he is scheduled to meet Senior General Than Shwe, the country’s isolationist military ruler. The general refused to take Ban’s phone calls or to respond to his letters in the days after the disaster.

Although the UN has been critical of Myanmar’s human rights record, Mr Ban has insisted the aid effort should not be politicised. The impoverished nation has accepted tonnes of donations from around the world, and has allowed US military planes to airlift supplies into Rangoon airport.

But it said aid from US naval ships nearby came with “strings attached” and could not be accepted. Four US military vessels have been waiting at sea outside the Irawaddy Delta since May 13, carrying 1,000 Marines, 14 helicopters, and 15,000 water containers and purifying kits that can provide tens of thousands of gallons of drinking water per day.

A spokesman for the US embassy in Bangkok said today that the ships would remain on standby off the Burmese coast in case the junta changed their minds.

Meanwhile, the UN's World Food Programme said that the first of 10 helicopters approved by the junta to work in the country had arrived today. “It’s very good news,” a spokesman said. “We’ve got barges in Rangoon, lots of boats, trucks and now helicopters. We’re confident that we’ll be able to move what we have."

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