United Nations, May 18 (Prensa Latina) – The United Nations Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs will arrive in Myanmar Sunday, to speed the help efforts for the victims of Hurricane Nargis.
UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said the UN official wants to talk to the authorities in Yangon to speed up the help the survivors of the tragedy, which caused the death of 100,000 people.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon announced this week he would send the official to Myanmar, to look for authorization to increase the arrival of personnel and loads with help.
Hurricane Nargis affected 2.5 million people, mainly in Irrawaddy, one of the greatest world"s rice production centers.
UN officials said some slow progress in supplies and humanitarian personnel have been gotten, but more is necessary.
An emergency team from the Association of South East Asian Nations is also in Myanmar, a place where strong rains are worsening the situation of millions of people without a home.
FAO officials said the impact of Nargis destroyed rice fields and food warehouses.
Time is running out, and if rice seeds are not received in the 40 or 50 days, plantations will not be cultivated for crops this year, specialists said.
Myanmar might stop being a rice exporter to become an importer, and governmental estimates pointed out there would be needed an amount of 243 million dollars to restore agricultural production.
On the other hand, the UN Fund for Children locates in a million the quantity of children affected by the hurricane, many of them sleeping in the streets, schools or monasteries, without beds or means to be protected of rain.
The World Health Organization indicated that around 50 percent of the health centers in rural areas and 20 percent of the hospitals in the delta of Irrawaddy were impacted by Hurricane Nargis.
UNFC specialists, through seven supervision groups in that region, reported that important illnesses outbreaks have not been reported up to now.
The World Food Program informed that it has supplied 1,200 tons of rice, cookies enriched with vitamins and cereals to the affected areas, to feed about 200,000 damaged people.
Another UN report said that the UN International Union of Telecommunications placed 100 terminals of satellites in Myanmar to help to the reestablishment of the nets of communications in that Asian country.
