Burma is "not ready" for foreign search and rescue teams after the deadly cyclone, the foreign ministry said
today in a state newspaper, announcing that some aid workers had been deported.

Special feature: All the latest from Burma

Video: Aid flight lands in Burma

Video: Death toll to double daily

Photo Gallery: the extent of the destruction

A search and rescue team and media who arrived on Wednesday on a flight from Qatar were deported the same day because Burmese authorities believed the plane was only carrying supplies, not workers, the statement said.

"The relevant parties from the Myanmar (Burma) side did not have prior information on the presence of such teams. The Myanmar side understood that only handing over of donated emergency provisions
would take place," it said.

"Currently Myanmar has prioritised receiving emergency relief provisions and is making strenuous efforts to transport those provisions without delay by its own labours to the affected areas," it said.

"As such, Myanmar is not ready to receive search and rescue teams as well as media teams from foreign countries."

Burma will only accept donations of cash or emergency aid, the statement added, saying the country needed
medical supplies, food, clothing, generators and shelters.

"The donors and the international community can be assured that Myanmar is doing its best ... to relieve the suffering of victims of Cyclone Nargis."

So far 11 charter flights carrying international aid have arrived in Rangoon "with prior consent" from Burmese authorities, the statement said.

"Myanmar authorities on their part have been making their best efforts to forward and distribute the donated provisions to the victims in a timely manner," it said.

Burma's actions over relief effort unprecedented: UN

The United Nations said Burma's refusal to grant visas to relief experts desperate to help cyclone victims was "unprecedented" in the history of humanitarian work.

A spokesman of the World Food Program said the organisation had submitted 10 visa applications around the world, including six in Bangkok, Thailand.

But he said no visas were expected to be issued in Bangkok because of a Thai holiday today. 

WFP spokesman Paul Risley said: "The frustration caused by what appears to be a paperwork delay is unprecedented in modern humanitarian relief efforts."

Grim fight for survival

The United States has said the death toll from Cyclone Nargis could be around 100,000, but the regime yesterday increased its official death toll by just 17. It gave figures of 22,997 dead, 1,430 injured and 42,119 missing.

The UN has said the situation in Burma is "increasingly desperate" and estimated that 1.5 million people have been severely affected.

And UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged the regime to focus on mobilising resources rather than on the upcoming constitutional referendum.

The United States, one of the junta's most vocal critics, announced it was not sending an aid flight after earlier saying it was, adding to the sense of confusion and frustration over the international relief effort.

The White House urged Burma to allow US disaster relief into the country while a State Department official said the US was mulling dropping food aid, hinting it may go ahead without Rangoon's approval.

But US Defence Secretary Robert Gates later said although the US military was positioning ships and helicopters to move relief supplies quickly into Myanmar, it would not do so until it was given the go-ahead.

"I cannot imagine us going in without the permission of the Myanmar government," he said.

Fears over hunger and disease

There are fears that many of those who survived the first tragedy may succumb to a second, falling prey to hunger and disease while the supplies that might save them languish nearby with no way -- or no permission -- to get in.

Aid groups said the country needs hundreds of planeloads of supplies and equipment to cope with Cyclone Nargis, which barrelled into Burma overnight on Friday, unleashing one of the worst natural disasters in history.

They said help was slowly arriving, but not enough -- and not quickly enough -- for most of those in the stricken southwest Irrawaddy delta who saw their villages ripped apart or washed away.

UN experts granted permission

The UN said four disaster experts received permission to travel to Burma, but there was no immediate word for hundreds of others awaiting a green light from the military, which has ruled the former Burma since 1962.

The UN's Holmes told reporters: "I am disappointed that we have not had more results" from discussions with the Burmese government.

Holmes said UN chief Ban Ki-moon was trying to talk to junta leader Than Shwe to urge him "strongly to facilitate access" for foreign relief workers.

ASEAN pressed junta

In a rare break from its policy of non-interference in its members' affairs, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) pressed the junta to soften its stance, as did China, Burma 's most powerful ally.

It is not known if all the remote delta settlements have been reached by the government. But with the devastation widespread, and apparently thousands of dead rotting on the ground, the regime upped the official death toll by 17.

State-run television gave the latest figures as 22,997 dead, 1,430 injured and 42,119 missing.

'People swept away'

But a military official in the delta township of Labutta estimated 80,000 dead there alone, and many families there told an AFP reporter most of their relatives had been killed.

"Houses collapsed, buildings collapsed, and people were swept away," one man said. "I only survived by hanging on to a big tree."

Around 5,000 square kilometres remain underwater, and more than a million homeless need emergency relief, a UN spokesman said.

Boats needed to reach delta

"The bottleneck (in aid) is getting it out in the delta. That needs boats, helicopters, trucks," said Richard Horsey, a Bangkok-based spokesman with the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Shari Villarosa, US charge d'affaires in Burma 's main city Rangoon, said there could be more than 100,000 dead in the Irrawaddy delta, where 95 percent of buildings were reported to have disappeared.

Food prices in Burma, already one of the world's most impoverished nations, have soared. A bag of rice now costs 40,000 kyats ($US35) in the commercial hub Rangoon, up from 25,000 last week.

Petrol on the black market, where most people obtain their fuel, has more than doubled.

Despite the crisis, the government said it plans to go ahead on Saturday with a constitutional referendum as part of a slow-moving process to restore democracy -- a process critics say is only intended to cement the army's grip on power.