YANGON, MYANMAR - AT least 15,000 people were killed in the Myanmar cyclone and the toll was likely to rise as officials made contact with the worst-hit areas, the military government's foreign minister said.

Foreign Minister Nyan Win said on state television on Tuesday that 10,000 people had died in just one town, Bogalay, as he gave the first detailed account of what is emerging as the worst cyclone to hit Asia since 1991, when 143,000 people were killed in Bangladesh.

'In Irrawaddy Division the death toll amounts to more than 10,000,' he said in a state television broadcast, in which he also said the military government welcomed outside assistance, an unprecedented green light to governments and aid agencies who want to help with the recovery.

'The missing is about 3,000. In Bogalay, the death toll is about 10,000,' the minister said in the broadcast monitored outside of the South-east Asian country.

The United Nations and the former Burma's neighbours are scrambling to deliver food, clean water and shelter to survivors after the junta, the latest face of 46 years of unbroken military rule, gave them permission.

The total left homeless by the 190km per hour winds and 3.5 metre storm surge is in the several hundred thousands, United Nations aid officials say, and could run into the millions.

In Yangon, a city of 5 million, people were queueing up for bottled water and there was still no electricity four days after the vicious Cyclone Nargis struck the delta, rice bowl of the country of 53 million people.

'Generators are selling very well under the generals,' said one man waiting outside a shop, reflecting some of the resentment on the streets to what many described as a slow warning and response to the cyclone's 190 km per hour winds.

Very few soldiers were seen clearing debris and trees, except at major intersections, residents in the former capital said. Monks and residents, using what tools they had, cut trees.

'The regime has lost a golden opportunity to send the soldiers as soon as the storm stopped to win the heart and soul of people,' said a retired civil servant.

Myanmar says referendum will go ahead in most of country
Myanmar's constitutional referendum set for this weekend will go ahead except in 47 townships worst hit by a cyclone that has left 15,000 dead, according to state television monitored on Tuesday in Bangkok.

The referendum set for Saturday will be the first balloting in the military-ruled nation in nearly two decades.

The junta has decided that the vote will go ahead despite the cyclone that ploughed across southwestern Myanmar at the weekend.

'The referendum has been postponed in 47 townships, but the other disaster areas have returned to normal,' state television said.

'The referendum will be held on May 24 in seven townships in Irrawaddy and 40 townships in Yangon,' it added.

Generals accept aid
The last major storm to ravage Asia was Cyclone Sidr, which killed 3,300 people in Bangladesh last November.

The scale of the disaster drew a rare acceptance of outside help from the diplomatically isolated generals, who spurned such approaches in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

The United States Embassy in Myanmar authorised the release of of US$250,000 (S$340,000) in immediate emergency aid, and US first lady Laura Bush, a critic of the junta, promised more would be forthcoming.

However, she urged Myanmar's military rulers to first accept a US disaster response team that so far has been kept out, saying it would clear the way for broader aid.

The secretive junta has moved even further into the shadows in the last six months due to widespread outrage at its bloody crackdown on protests led by Buddhist monks in September.

After getting a 'careful green light' from the government, the United Nations said it was pulling out all the stops to send in emergency aid such as food, clean water, blankets and plastic sheeting.

'The UN will begin preparing assistance now to be delivered and transported to Myanmar as quickly as possible,' World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman Paul Risley said.

Thailand on Tuesday airlifted more than 400,000 dollars (S$543,503) worth of food, drinking water and medical supplies to help cyclone victims in neighbouring Myanmar, Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama said.

The military C-130 airplane left on Tuesday afternoon for Yangon, airport officials said.

Aid agency World Vision said it had been granted special visas to send in personnel to back up the 600 staff in the country.

'This is massive. It is not necessarily quite tsunami level, but in terms of impact of millions displaced, thousands dead, it is just terrible,' World Vision Australia head Tim Costello said.

'Organisations like ours have been given permission, which is pretty unprecedented, to fly people in. This shows how grave it is in the Burmese government's mind,' he said.