Burma death toll rises to 22,464

Updated 22.59 Tue May 06 2008

Keywords: cyclone, Burma

The death toll from Saturday's cyclone in Burma has risen to at least 22,464 and is expected to get even higher.

An official report in Burma said an additional 41,000 are still missing after Cyclone Nargis tore through the Irrawaddy Delta and the major city of Rangoon.

Around 10,000 people were killed in one town by the violent storm - the worst to hit Asia in more than a quarter of a century

"More deaths were caused by the tidal wave than the storm itself," Minister for Relief and Resettlement Maung Maung Swe said in the devastated former capital, Rangoon, where food and water supplies are running low.

"The wave was up to 12 feet (3.5 metres) high and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages. They did not have anywhere to flee."

Around 10,000 people were killed in Bogalay, a town 50 miles southwest of Rangoon, by the violent storm - the worst to hit Asia in more than a quarter of a century.

United Nations officials are warning that hundreds of thousand of people have been left in desperate need of shelter and clean water.

Neighbouring Thailand is flying in emergency aid requested by the Burmese government.

A Thai government spokesman said the ruling junta had asked for food, medical supplies and construction equipment.

Military authorities and foreign aid workers are struggling to assess the full extent of the damage caused by the Category 3 storm, which packed winds of 120 miles per hour.

A human rights group based in Thailand said Burmese soldiers and police killed 36 prisoners after a riot at Rangoon's notorious Insein prison in the chaotic aftermath of the cyclone.

The military junta, who renamed the country Myanmar, said it would postpone to May 24 a constitutional referendum in the worst-hit areas of Rangoon and the sprawling Irrawaddy delta.

But state TV said the May 10 vote on the charter - part of the army's much-criticised "roadmap to democracy" - would proceed as planned in the rest of the country, which has been under army rule for the last 46 years.

The military's political plans have been slammed by Western governments, especially after the army's bloody suppression of Buddhist-monk led protests last September.