Overland route to Myanmar takes 6-10 days: UN

Overland aid convoys from Thailand to military-ruled Myanmar will take between six to 10 days to arrive in the cyclone-hit city of Yangon because of the appalling roads, the United Nations said on Friday.

The road, which is closed to foreigners because of occasional attacks by ethnic Karen rebels, winds through steep jungle gorges and is so narrow in some places that traffic has to travel in one direction one day, and in the other direction the next.

Even though it's only 400 km from the Thai border town of Mae Sot to the former Myanmar capital, the journey takes two or three days at the best of times, people who have made the trip say.

Trucks on nightmarish roads
But the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), which is sending in two or three trucks on Saturday with 5 000 plastic sheets and 200 tents, said it could take more than a week to arrive because of damage to the road from Cyclone Nargis.

"That's what the truckers are telling us at the moment," spokesperson Vivian Tan said. "They must be factoring in some road damage."

The nightmarish overland journey is an indicator of the huge logistical challenges facing aid agencies and foreign governments trying to get emergency food and shelter to the estimated 1.5 million survivors of the cyclone.

Six days after Nargis hit, a steady flow of aid flights are arriving in Yangon but they are woefully short of what is needed, aid experts say, urging the junta to throw its doors open to a full-scale international relief operation.

The UNHCR supplies going overland are being taken from existing stockpiles in northwest Thailand for the 120 000 long-term Myanmar refugees living there. -Reuters