An international aid group says that thousands of children in Myanmar, survivors of Cyclone Nargis, could starve to death within weeks unless emergency aid and food supplies can reach them.

Save the Children said on its website on Sunday that children, who may constitute up to 40 per cent of the victims, could starve "within two to three weeks".

"We are extremely worried that many children in the affected areas are now suffering from severe acute malnourishment," said Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children UK.

"When people reach this stage, they can die in a matter of days."

The cyclone struck southwest Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, earlier this month and the UN believes nearly 134,000 people have died or are missing, while 2.5 million survivors have been effected.

International pressure

Myanmar's military rulers are under growing pressure to accept a full-scale relief operation for cyclone survivors in need of immediate aid.

Thousands of tonnes of aid are being flown in to Myanmar, but relief efforts have been hampered by government restrictions.

In recent days, Myanmar's rulers have begun to let more foreign experts into the country, more than two weeks after the storm, but aid groups still want greater access to help supervise relief efforts.

Despite the government's insistence that the relief efforts are going well, witnesses who managed to slip the security cordon around the hard-hit Irrawaddy Delta said the situation remains dire.

"It was horrible beyond description," said one foreign businessman.

"Most of the devastated huts looked like they were empty at first glance, but there were actually survivors inside.

"One hut with no roof was full of about 100 people, crouching in the rain. There was no food and no water. Each person had nothing more than the clothes on their bodies, shivering in the cold."

'Man-made catastrophe'

Britain's Asia minister said he thought efforts would soon pay off, with an agreement likely for a UN and Asian-led operation that could solve the impasse.

"I think we're potentially at a turning point, but like all turning points in Burma, the corner will have a few S-bends in it," Mark Malloch-Brown said.

But the minister's optimism follows comments by Gordon Brown, Britain's prime minister, who earlier labelled the military's holding back of aid as "inhuman" and said what had been a natural disaster was becoming "a man-made catastrophe".

John Holmes, the UN's emergency relief co-ordinator, was due to arrive in Myanmar late on Sunday to assess the situation and plead with Myanmar's military leaders for greater co-operation with relief agencies.

A day earlier, officials gave a guided tour of the country's cyclone-hit regions to foreign diplomats and aid workers based in Myanmar.

The diplomats were taken into an area which has been closed off to foreigners, but it was "not good enough to get a clear picture of the damage", according to one diplomat.

"What they showed us looked very good, but they are not showing us the whole picture," Chris Kaye, Myanmar director for the UN's World Food Programme, said.

As pressure mounts on Myanmar's allies to use their clout, Southeast Asian foreign ministers are due to meet in Singapore on Monday for talks on how to deal with their neighbour.

PHOTO CAPTION:

Myanmar cyclone

Al-Jazeerah