The death toll has so far climbed to more than 22,000 with 41,000 still missing four days after the storm slammed into the country’s southern coast, the Burmese government said on Tuesday.
“Due to the acute situation in Burma, Sida has decided to earmark 15 million kronor, in an initial phase, for immediate acute efforts,” Sweden’s state aid agency said in a statement.
Most of the cyclone victims in Burma were killed in the Irrawaddy river delta, a remote but densely populated region of malarial swampland that is hard to reach at the best of times, experts say.
International aid agencies, which are still waiting for visas to enter the country four days after the storm, said delivering aid to such a remote region was posing a major challenge.
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