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YANGON, Myanmar-A severe shortage of housing has left hundreds of thousands of cyclone survivors in Myanmar exposed to heavy rain as the monsoon season begins, aid agencies said Saturday.Aid agencies say hundreds of thousands of survivors are without shelter as the monsoon season begins.The U.N. and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said there was an urgent need for tarpaulins to provide temporary shelter to an estimated 1.5 million homeless survivors. Otherwise, the threats of hunger and disease could intensify, they warned."Exposure to the elements five weeks after a disaster of this magnitude has to be a major concern," spokesman John Sparrow said. "People are in a weakened condition. They are sick; they are hungry. Without shelter, their whole situation is seriously exacerbated."Sparrow estimated that only a quarter of those who needed shelter materials had been reached. Watch refugees talk about the lack of aid »The U.N. estimates that 2.4 million people were affected when Cyclone Nargis hit May 2-3 and that warns that more than 1 million still need help, mostly in the hard-to-reach Irrawaddy Delta.John Holmes, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said "relatively few" of those survivors who were badly affected by the storm had not received any sort of aid. But he said the U.N.'s effort needs to be stepped up because many survivors still needed help and supplies."I think people are getting to all the main places, although it's not always as easy as it should be," he said. "There's no evidence of starvation at the moment, although as I say many people are still in significant need of aid."U.N. officials and aid groups have criticized the regime for hindering access to the delta, saying it has prevented enough food, water and shelter from reaching desperate survivors.The U.N. also said Saturday that a lack of funding was hindering the aid effort, with only $20 million of the required $50 million received to finance logistic efforts that allow it to extend aid operations into remote regions.The U.N. has said that access could also be greatly improved if the country's military junta would accept American offers of support which include the use of military helicopters to ferry aid to remote locations.The U.S. military said it was keeping 22 helicopters on standby in case Myanmar's ruling junta reversed its rejection of such help for cyclone victims, saying the aircraft could reach survivors within three days.With only seven Myanmar government helicopters reportedly flying, relief supplies are mostly being transported along dirt roads and then by boat. International aid agencies say boats able to navigate the delta's canals are scarce and efforts to import vehicles had been hampered by government red tape."Of the 1 million or 1.5 million people in need of relief support, we think that between 450,000 to 750,000 are in emergency need," said Lt. Gen. John Goodman, commander of Marine Forces Pacific and head of the U.S. relief operation for Myanmar.They could be reached "over the course of a three-day period" by American helicopters and landing craft, he said from a temporary U.S. staging area at Utapao, Thailand.Goodman said the junta was "still considering" the offer of the use of U.S. helicopters, which would include allowing Myanmar officials aboard all U.S. helicopters to monitor their routes and to unload relief supplies.The country's military leaders are particularly sensitive to allowing U.S. helicopters into the delta, given the fact that Washington has been a leading critic of the junta for its poor human rights record and refusal to hand power to a democratically elected government.As in the days of Noah...
