A gale blew through the village of Ahgnu — and the effect it had was devastating.

Not the physical damage, for the winds were no stronger than 40mph and even the feeblest of the palm and bamboo shelters remained intact. The chaos was in the minds of the villagers — 1,500 poor farmers and fishermen stricken by horror far out of proportion to the strength of the storm.

Men ran about, attempting to secure their homes with guy ropes attached to trees. Children screamed and huddled inside and mothers fled to the village monastery.

“We kneeled down and prayed to be protected from the wind,” said one woman in the riverside village east of the Rangoon River. “Everyone was so afraid. We prayed that this would not be Nargis all over again.”

It is five months since Cyclone Nargis tore across the Irrawaddy delta and the city of Rangoon. On the face of it, the catastrophe has been brought under control. After early obstruction by Burma's military Government, a large international aid effort has relieved the worst effects of the disaster and begun the job of rebuilding.

Food, medicines and shelter are flowing into the delta, with no secondary disaster from hunger or disease, as many had feared.

Outside Burma, the catastrophe is a fading memory; after a surge of donations in the early weeks, new funds for aid groups have dwindled to a trickle.

But the cyclone is still doing its damage — to livelihoods, education and health, as well as through the terror lingering in the minds of those who survived it. And the people of the Irrawaddy delta are no better placed to resist a future cyclone than they were five months ago.

“These new houses we have made now cannot stand another serious storm,” says a man named Hla Thaing, in Ahgnu. “It would be hell to face it all over again.”

Like much else in Burma, it comes down to a fundamental problem: the Government, in various incarnations, has tyrannised the country for 46 years. For three weeks after the cyclone struck on May 2, Senior General Than Shwe and his junta allowed only a small number of foreign aid workers to travel into the devastated areas.

A natural disaster became an international political confrontation as longstanding disgust at the oppressiveness of the regime fused with fresh anger at its neglect of cyclone victims.

Then, on May 25, the visiting UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, secured a promise from General Than Shwe that foreign aid workers would be allowed into the delta. The governments of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) brokered a comprehensive aid plan with the UN and the generals, and since then the humanitarian effort has gone relatively smoothly.

Thousands of foreign aid workers, representing scores of UN and independent organisations, have gone into the delta. Although permission must be sought a few days in advance, it is rarely declined.

In terms of the number of contacts it has with the Burmese Government, to make decisions on everything from rice imports and medical supplies to the distribution of ducks to stricken villages, the international community has never had such a close relationship with the suspicious and isolated regime.

There have been cases of malnutrition among children and of cholera, typhoid and malaria, but not significantly more than one would expect in Burma in a normal year.

An agricultural disaster appears to have been averted. Despite the inundation of salt water and the deaths of many of the water buffalo used for ploughing, 97 per cent of fields affected by the cyclone have been planted, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation.

They will probably yield less grain than usual, partly because of a shortage of fertilisers, but the shortfall will be made up in other parts of the country which produce a surplus of rice.

Either because of the action of the international community, or because the fears were exaggerated in the first place, there has been no second wave of deaths - which is not to say that the cyclone operation can yet be judged a success. One potentially deadly problem lies ahead: a lack of drinking water during Burma's dry season.

In the wet months water is so abundant that all that is necessary is to put out jars and watch them fill. The rainy season peters out in the middle of October, however, forcing villages to turn for fresh water to the beautiful lotus-festooned ponds which they all have.

But the cyclone inundated them with sea water and, though they have been drained repeatedly, many remain salty and undrinkable. It may take a year or two to flush them out; it may be that the cyclone has permanently altered the water table. Either way, many communities could run out of drinking water by the end of the year.

“If the problem really is widespread and if nothing is done to fix it, then people will die of thirst,” Larry James, a water expert contracted to the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, said.

Money is drying up almost as fast as water. The UN's first emergency appeal was supported generously, but a second call for $481 million (£270m) has been only half met — meaning that the agencies will be able to carry out emergency relief but not the second wave of reconstruction to set communities on their own feet.

“People have roofs over their heads, they can put food on the table and there's somewhere for their kids to go to school,” says Andrew Kirkwood, of the British charity Save the Children.

“But a huge number of livelihood assets were lost — fishing boats, nets, livestock. The irony is that if you don't replace those as well, you end up with people who, in the long run, are going to be more dependent on more, expensive aid.”

Lurking in the background is the deepest fear of all — another cyclone, as strong, or stronger. Nargis was unprecedented in Burmese history, but unpredictable weather patterns make it impossible to rule out a repeat, and the people of the delta are as unprepared now as they were in May.

“The old people here have lived through a lot,” said one Burmese aid worker. “They experienced the fighting between the Japanese and the British, and they survived. But they are afraid now; more afraid of the cyclone than of war.”

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