UN warning over Burma cyclone aid 联合国倡议援助缅甸遭飓风袭击地区

Hundreds of thousands of people in Burma's Irrawaddy Delta¹ still need assistance - a year after a deadly cyclone², the UN and aid agencies warn.

联合国援助机构称，致命的飓风发生一年之后，缅甸伊洛瓦底江附近成千上万的人仍需要帮助。

Reconstruction³ in the low-lying Irrawaddy Delta has barely begun

The UN and Burma's neighbours made a $700m (£469m) appeal for reconstruction in February but have so far received pledges of only $100m (£67m).

The UN says it is now allowed to bring in all the staff it needs after an initial ban by Burma's (Myanmar) junta（派别，团体）.

Cyclone Nargis killed about 140,000 people in 2008.

More than two million people were left homeless.

'Intensely suspicious'

The cyclone that ripped across the fertile delta（三角洲） of the Irrawaddy caused a humanitarian⁴（人道主义的，博爱的） disaster on a scale comparable to the Asian tsunami⁵.

Yet the amounts of aid being requested are just a fraction of（一小部分） what was spent on countries like Indonesia after the tsunami - and not much is forthcoming yet.

Part of the problem is that most foreign journalists are banned from reporting in Burma - so there is little public awareness⁶ of the work being done by around 60 international aid agencies there.

Another factor that deters⁷（制止） donors⁸ is the fear that aid could be misused⁹ by the military - a fear that Save the Children's (STC) Andrew Kirkwood says is unfounded.

"We have 3,000 of our own staff in the delta, and I'm absolutely confident that the assistance given to STC and other agencies got exactly where it was supposed to go - there has been no systematic¹⁰ diversion of those funds," Mr Kirkwood says.

Large numbers of the cyclone's survivors¹¹ are still living in flimsy（易坏的，脆弱的） shelters; many supplies remain contaminated（污染） by salt.

Reconstruction - as opposed to emergency relief - has barely begun.

The one bright spot, say the agencies, is that they are getting as much access as they need for their staff.

Although they still need to ask permission from a military government that remains¹² intensely suspicious of any foreign presence in the country.