BANGKOK, THAILAND - THEY are hungry, grief-stricken and their homes are in ruins, but cyclone-battered Myanmar citizens are going to heroic lengths to help their devastated communities, aid workers say.

Frustrated international relief experts have been forced to watch the disaster unfold on television bulletins, barred by the military government from entering the country to help some two million people in dire need.

In their absence, it has fallen to the victims themselves to help one another provide food, basic first aid and shelter, and to work as best they can to fend off the threat of disease and starvation which looms over the country.

'They're doing kind of heroic things after they went through the cyclone too. Some of them don't even have roofs on their own homes,' Save the Children's Kathryn Rawe told reporters in Bangkok.

People who have lost their family members, been displaced from their homes, and lost every possession, are turning up at Red Cross centres to offer their help.

Some have set up waystations to treat the many people who were 'sandblasted' by debris that tore a layer of skin off their backs as the ferocious storm thundered across townships on May 3, leaving at least 71,000 dead or missing.

Bridget Gardner from the International Federation of the Red Cross returned from a trip to the worst-hit Irrawaddy Delta region, which is now largely off-limits to foreigners, where she witnessed 'many acts of heroism'.

'Four or five volunteers are giving basic first aid to 200 people a day, and they don't even have homes to go back to when they finish,' she said.

Hospitals overwhelmed by victims are increasingly relying on this voluntary help.

One woman urgently needed a blood transfusion.

'These guys got on their bikes and went out and found two guys with the same blood group,' Gardner's IFRC colleague Joe Lowry said in Bangkok.

'Within five minutes they had sat them down and did a live blood transfusion into the woman. They are taking a huge burden off the hospitals.'

The World Health Organisation estimates that half of the clinics and 20 per cent of the hospitals in the delta were damaged during the storm.

One hospital had its roof blown off and, with heavy downpours still soaking the region, was unable to function until other volunteers found a scarce tarpaulin and erected a temporary roof.

One of the Myanmar Red Cross staff members reported for work the day after the roof was blown off her house, despite a one-and-a-half hour walk to get there.

The volunteers are part of a wider community effort that has seen all kinds of people in Myanmar - monks, rock stars, market vendors and villagers - pitch in to the disaster response while the government drags its feet.

They are helping feed and house poorer neighbours, wielding axes and machetes to clear fallen trees, and taking their own cars and trucks laden with food and supplies down to the disaster zone.

The Myanmar Red Cross has 27,000 registered volunteers whose efforts are being supported by spontaneous offers of help.

But more foreign experts trained in engineering and logistics are urgently needed for a disaster response that must not only save lives, but help rebuild the country's shattered infrastructure and farming lands.

The United Nations says that between 1.6 and 2.5 million people have been severely affected by the storm, and are now living in makeshift accommodation.

Often flimsy structures of bamboo and palm, they will quickly fall if dire predictions of more bad weather comes to pass.

'Shelters are the most pressing need,' Mr Lowry said.

'That's the most important thing with the weather worsening. Water can be your best friend or your worst enemy. At this stage it's the latter.'

'If the weather worsens many people will be on the move again and reaching them is very very difficult,' he said. -- AFP