BANGKOK - UNITED Nations agencies yesterday reported the beginnings of a long-overdue scale-up in relief efforts for victims of Cyclone Nargis.

More disaster relief experts are getting visas to travel to Myanmar, and more are being granted access to the stricken Irrawaddy delta.

Around 42 per cent of the estimated 2.4 million people affected by the cyclone have received help, Ms Elisabeth Byrs, a spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), said yesterday in Geneva.

The increased access has come after days of intense diplomacy in Singapore, Nyapyidaw and Yangon, culminating in Sunday's UN- and Asean-sponsored donors' conference in Yangon.

'We have been able to establish a new humanitarian space, however small and however limited,' Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said in Bangkok yesterday, after returning from Yangon.

Asean's humanitarian initiative had succeeded in establishing 'conditional trust' with the military regime, he said.

But he added that the 'humanitarian space needs to be sustained with political support' and warned: 'We don't want to lose any more time, momentum or confidence.'

More than 50 countries, the UN and international non-governmental organisations participated in Sunday's conference in Yangon. They shelved political issues like the continued detention of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, 62, leader of the opposition National League for Democracy.

Yesterday evening, her detention was renewed for six months, sparking strident criticism from pro-democracy activists.

Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday also said it was disappointed to learn of the move but said it should not be used 'to politicise the urgent humanitarian efforts' for cyclone victims.

Cyclone Nargis is believed to have killed more than 100,000, possibly as many as 200,000.

Well over a million people have yet to receive adequate - and in many cases any - aid since the cyclone struck three weeks ago.

The homeless in the worst-hit Irrawaddy delta region are still lining the roads, begging for handouts from passing vehicles.

Dr Surin said a new assessment by an Asean Emergency Rapid Assessment Team would be ready on June 12, to be used as the basis of an appeal by Ocha. Its initial appeal was for US$187 million (S$255 million) from the international community - which it later upped to US$201 million.

Myanmar's ruling junta says it needs more than US$10 billion - which it is unlikely to get unless it demonstrates real openness in the week ahead, said Dr Surin.

'They (donors) expressed full commitment but (were) not quite ready to give the cheque' he said.

'There is a gold mine out there to be harnessed. But the window of opportunity is not big and the time not long.'

nirmal@sph.com.sg