Aid workers fear Burma cyclone deaths will top 50,000

Foreign aid workers in Burma have concluded that as many as 50,000 people diedin Saturday’s cyclone, and two to three million are homeless, in a disasteron a scale comparable with the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

The official death count after Cyclone Nargis stood at just under half that by1300 GMT today, at around 22,500 people dead plus a further 41,000 missing.

But due to the incompleteness of the information from the stricken delta ofthe Irrawaddy river, UN and charity workers in the city of Rangoon privatelybelieve that the number will eventually be double that.

"We are looking at 50,000 dead and millions homeless," AndrewKirkwood, country director of the British charity Save The Children, toldThe Times.