World faces limits to getting aid into Myanmar

The highest hurdle is political -persuading a fearful and out-of-touch military regime to give up, even temporarily, a bit of its control.

The junta has allowed the U.N. and some other agencies to hand out the aid directly but prohibited their few foreign staff allowed into Myanmar from leaving Yangon, the country's largest city and former capital.

Under intense pressure from Washington and the United Nations, the junta has allowed the U.S. military to ferry in emergency supplies provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

After initially agreeing to one flight on Monday, Myanmar's leaders have opened the door to daily flights by Marine and Air Force C-130 cargo planes. As of Saturday, the U.S. military had flown 21 C-130s loaded with about 500,000 pounds of aid into Yangon from their makeshift base in Utapao, Thailand.

Another four flights left Friday from the U.S. military's emergency headquarters at Utapao Air Base, in central Thailand.

"At this time, the needs are so immense, they are so large, that we're taking some risks to hope that we can get the assistance through to the ones who are most in need," said USAID administrator Henrietta Fore. "There is an enormous humanitarian urgency to this effort."

Thai and Indian military missions also have been approved, and British, French and Australian warships were converging on the area.

Still, the U.N. and the international Red Cross say that between 1.6 and 2.5 million people are in urgent need of food, water and shelter. Only 270,000 have been reached so far by the aid groups.

Malloch-Brown estimated that 24 C-130 flights a day would be needed to meet the crisis -far higher than the current level. And, so far, U.S. requests to bring in helicopters, one of the few means of reaching the worst-hit regions, have been denied.

Myanmar's government has less than 40 helicopters, most old and in disrepair, and some 15 transport planes, primarily small jets unable to carry hundreds of tons of supplies.