Braving high velocity winds, the Indian Air Force's largest transport aircraft landed in Yangon on Thursday carrying relief supplies for the cyclone-hit people of Myanmar. On Wednesday, two smaller IAF planes discharged relief supplies under "Operation Sahayata.' INS Rana and INS Kirpan, despite inclement weather, berthed alongside a naval jetty in Yangon and they were received by Myanmar Minister for Social Welfare Relief and Resettlement Maung Maung Swe at a brief handing-over ceremony. Indian Embassy Charge-de-Affaires Manoj K. Bharti was present.

The United Nations estimated 1.5 million people have been "severely affected" by the cyclone that swept through Myanmar, with the United States expressing outrage on Thursday at delays in allowing in aid. In Myanmar, desperate survivors cried out for food, water and other supplies nearly a week after 100,000 people were feared killed by Cyclone Nargis as it swept across the farms and villages of the low-lying Irrawaddy delta region.

Yangon: The first of the UN's relief planes landed in Myanmar on Thursday as a US diplomat warned that the toll in Cyclone Nargis could be over 100,000, signalling a humanitarian crisis way beyond the military junta's estimates so far. Worldwide condemnation of the junta also grew, for keeping US aid planes at bay, even as thousands of hungry people swarmed the few open shops and fistfights broke out over food and water in the swamped Irrawaddy Delta.

Burma's isolationist regime finally gave clearance on Thursday for the first major international airlift of food for survivors of a devastating cyclone after delays that frustrated aid agencies, but US flights remained grounded due to lack of access, officials said. With a death toll that could eventually exceed 100,000, according to a top US diplomat, Burma's generals were still stalling on visas for UN teams urgently seeking entry to ensure aid is delivered to the victims.

India, a major importer of pulses, is faced with a delay in shipments of urad and tur owing to the cyclone in Myanmar, a major exporting nation. With an annual supply of 1.5 million tonnes of pulses to India, Myanmar accounts for almost 50 per cent of the country's annual pulses imports. "The cyclone would lead to a one-month delay in shipments of urad and tur. Shipments to the tune of 50,000 tonnes is estimated to have been stuck," said K C Bhartiya, president of the Pulses Importers Association.

It was Asia's answer to Hurricane Katrina. Packing winds upwards of 120 mph, Cyclone Nargis became one of Asia's deadliest storms by hitting land at one of the lowest points in Myanmar and setting off a storm surge that reached 25 miles inland. "When we saw the (storm) track, I said, 'Uh oh, this is not going to be good," said Mark Lander, a meteorology professor at the University of Guam. "It would create a big storm surge. It was like Katrina going into New Orleans."

Pointing fingers at climate change to be the likely cause of the cyclone Nargis, which killed nearly 22,000 people in Burma, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has cautioned nations to speed up the curtailing of the emission of greenhouse gases.

Geneva: The United Nations said on Wednesday it had obtained permission to fly emergency supplies to cyclone-ravaged Myanmar but aid workers were stsill waiting for visas to enter the country.

Politics mustn't come in the way of relief efforts in Myanmar