The European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel, welcomed Sunday indications of improving access for relief agencies trying to help Myanmar's cyclone victims but urged the ruling junta to let in more relief workers.
"Hundreds of thousands of human lives are in the balance and a massive international operation is still needed in the Irrawaddy Delta to save those lives," he said in a statement released in Brussels.
"When disaster strikes on this kind of scale, it becomes a matter of global solidarity. Myanmar should embrace the experience of the international humanitarian community gained in crisis zones around the world. Their work is independent and impartial.
"That is why I urge the government to let more relief workers in and to let them go to the stricken zone to work alongside the local authorities in assisting the victims. The (European) Commission is ready to give more but the funds won't be much use without professional delivery on the ground," Michel said.
The junta upped the official death toll from Cyclone Nargis to 28,458 Sunday but it is feared that the number of dead from the cyclone which hit Myanmar's cental coastal region on May 2 to 3 is much higher.
A member of the European Commission's humanitarian field staff who has just returned from a needs assessment mission to Laputta in the heart of the Delta region said it was reported to her that as many as 40,000 people died in that district alone, dpa reported.