Relatives search Web for images of Burma's cyclone victims

Thestar.com reported that for Khin and many Burmese families desperate to find loved ones, the delta is a black hole of information, closed off by security officials who have stepped up control of the devastated area and restricted foreigners to the confines of Rangoon, also known as Yangon.

The Toronto-based online said two weeks after the cyclone, Burma - also known as Myanmar - still lacks the network of missing person information that helped foreign tourists and locals in Thailand find loved ones after the 2004 tsunami via websites such as "csiphuket" and notices posted at hospitals, town halls and temples.

Frustrated by patchy phone connections and Burma's propaganda-heavy state media, Khin says he has to rely on Burmese exile media.

"I was trying for a long time to phone my sister and praying she would answer," says Khin at his restaurant in Mae Sot near the Burmese border town of Myawaddy.

"It took her six days to come from the delta to Yangon. As soon as she opened the door, the bell rang, and she picked up the phone. It was me on the line."

She gave a grim report: she couldn't find any of their relatives around their hometown in the Labutta area. Their homes and villages were obliterated, as if wiped off the map by a wall of water.

"Now I know. Government TV was wrong. My sister said 95 per cent of Labutta is gone."

Foreign aid workers, fearing their phones are tapped by military intelligence, prefer their staff in Bangkok handle calls. A UN report said the government does not allow foreign agencies to import communications equipment from abroad; they can only purchase a maximum of 10 phones per agency through the Ministry of Posts and Communications - at a price of $1,500 each. Satellite phones, which are crucial for agencies to co-ordinate disaster relief, are banned.

Meanwhile, Than Shwe made his first visit to a refugee camp yesterday, patting the heads of babies and shaking hands with cyclone survivors, amid growing international criticism over the government's handling of the crisis.

Some survivors clasped their hands and bowed as he and a column of military leaders walked past. At least 78,000 people were killed in the May 2-3 storm and another 56,000 are missing. The UN has estimated the death toll at more than 100,000.

State-run radio said the government has so far spent about $2 million for relief work and has received millions of dollars worth of relief supplies from local and international donors.

Still, aid agencies say some 2.5 million survivors are in desperate need of help - food, shelter from intermittent monsoon rains, medicines, clean drinking water and sanitation. A UN report said Saturday that emergency relief from the international community had reached only 500,000 people.

In one of the few positive notes of the day, British Foreign Office Minister Mark Malloch-Brown told the British Broadcasting Corp. he believes Burma's rulers may soon relent on allowing military ships to join in the relief effort.