Aid agencies quickly took up the government offer to use Don Mueang airport as a logistical hub to speed up relief supplies to cyclone victims in neighbouring Burma, NGOs said on Monday.
"We've started a logistics hub at Don Mueang," said World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman Marcus Prior.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon over the weekend reportedly requested permission to use Don Mueang's empty cargo hangars to store emergency supplies for the WFP and transship them on to Burma.
The UN's use of Don Mueang, formerly Bangkok International Airport, began on Sunday. The old airport has only been used for domestic flights since the opening of the $3 billion Suvarnabhumi airport in September, 2006. Its official title is the inherited Bangkok International Airport, although it is commonly known as Suvarnabhumi.
Using Don Mueang's facilities will speed up delivery of rice, biscuits, beans and cooking oil to an estimated 750,000 people desperately in need of food in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, which smashed into Burma's central coast on May 2 and has left about 134,000 people dead or missing.
Over the past two weeks the WFP has only been able to fly in 14 planeloads of food through Rangoon International Airport, which along with locally-purchased food has met the basic food requirements of only 250,000 people.
"The WFP continues to make progress but it is slow and insufficient," acknowledged Prior at a Bangkok press conference.
The WFP estimates its needs to fly in about 375 tons of food a day to Burma to meet the requirements of 750,000 hungry people in the country.
The Burmese regime was the main cause for the slow delivery process during the first two weeks of the United Nations emergency operation, sources said. (Bangkok Post / dpa)
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Earlier report:
UN seeks use of Don Mueang for Burma aid
By Bangkok Post/Agencies
The government has offered Don Mueang airport as a staging post for aid heading to cyclone-hit Burma, Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama said yesterday.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called him two days ago and wrote to Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej asking if the empty cargo hangars could be used by the UN's World Food Programme (WFP). "The government has agreed," he said.
In principle, a working group set up under the Prime Minister's Office to help get relief to Burma will serve as the focal point of the operation which will be funded by the UN. The group would also work with Airports of Thailand in passing on the relief.
Mr Noppadon said the government would be happy for Don Mueang to be used by any other donors trying to get aid into Burma.
He flew to Singapore yesterday to attend a meeting of Asean foreign ministers who will discuss giving aid to Burma.
The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) is under pressure to get member Burma to widen the cyclone disaster relief effort.
Relief supplies are trickling in but the United Nations says the aid effort must be scaled up, and the junta must give more access to foreign disaster experts if the lives of thousands of survivors are to be saved.
Don Mueang was initially closed in September 2006 on the same day that the $3 billion Suvarnabhumi airport opened its doors.
But the new airport has been plagued by problems ranging from cracks in the runways to complaints about safety and sanitation, which prompted authorities to reopen Don Mueang six months later.
Mr Noppadon said that at the Asean meeting, foreign ministers will consider sending Surin Pitsuwan, the bloc secretary-general, to assess the damage in Burma.
The meeting would also look at what the group could do to handle natural disasters in future.
Cyclone Nargis ripped through southwest Burma on May 2, leaving more than 133,000 people dead or missing. Up to 2.5 million survivors are affected.
Asean member states, including Singapore and Thailand, have individually sent aid to Burma, whose ruling generals have accepted relief goods but have refused to allow most foreign disaster experts in to supervise the aid effort.
On Saturday, 30 Thai health workers arrived in Burma to treat cyclone victims. They are part of 100 medical workers from Asia who were allowed by the junta to provide help.
An aid group warned yesterday that thousands of children in Burma could starve to death within weeks unless emergency food supplies reach them soon. Save the Children said that the youngsters could succumb to hunger "within two to three weeks."
"We are worried that many children in the affected areas are now suffering from severe acute malnourishment, the most serious level of hunger," said Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children UK.
"When people reach this stage, they can die in a matter of days."
Some may already be dying from lack of food, she said.
As many as 40% of the needy are believed to be children. Aid workers have become frustrated by the junta's restrictions on the relief operation.
Save the Children said 30,000 children in the delta region of Burma were malnourished before the storm.
The cyclone destroyed food stocks and rice paddies in the key food producing region, raising fears of a famine. "With hundreds of thousands of people still not getting aid, many of these children will not survive much longer," Ms Whitbread said.
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"We've started a logistics hub at Don Mueang," said World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman Marcus Prior.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon over the weekend reportedly requested permission to use Don Mueang's empty cargo hangars to store emergency supplies for the WFP and transship them on to Burma.
The UN's use of Don Mueang, formerly Bangkok International Airport, began on Sunday. The old airport has only been used for domestic flights since the opening of the $3 billion Suvarnabhumi airport in September, 2006. Its official title is the inherited Bangkok International Airport, although it is commonly known as Suvarnabhumi.
Using Don Mueang's facilities will speed up delivery of rice, biscuits, beans and cooking oil to an estimated 750,000 people desperately in need of food in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, which smashed into Burma's central coast on May 2 and has left about 134,000 people dead or missing.
Over the past two weeks the WFP has only been able to fly in 14 planeloads of food through Rangoon International Airport, which along with locally-purchased food has met the basic food requirements of only 250,000 people.
"The WFP continues to make progress but it is slow and insufficient," acknowledged Prior at a Bangkok press conference.
The WFP estimates its needs to fly in about 375 tons of food a day to Burma to meet the requirements of 750,000 hungry people in the country.
The Burmese regime was the main cause for the slow delivery process during the first two weeks of the United Nations emergency operation, sources said. (Bangkok Post / dpa)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Earlier report:
UN seeks use of Don Mueang for Burma aid
By Bangkok Post/Agencies
The government has offered Don Mueang airport as a staging post for aid heading to cyclone-hit Burma, Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama said yesterday.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called him two days ago and wrote to Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej asking if the empty cargo hangars could be used by the UN's World Food Programme (WFP). "The government has agreed," he said.
In principle, a working group set up under the Prime Minister's Office to help get relief to Burma will serve as the focal point of the operation which will be funded by the UN. The group would also work with Airports of Thailand in passing on the relief.
Mr Noppadon said the government would be happy for Don Mueang to be used by any other donors trying to get aid into Burma.
He flew to Singapore yesterday to attend a meeting of Asean foreign ministers who will discuss giving aid to Burma.
The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) is under pressure to get member Burma to widen the cyclone disaster relief effort.
Relief supplies are trickling in but the United Nations says the aid effort must be scaled up, and the junta must give more access to foreign disaster experts if the lives of thousands of survivors are to be saved.
Don Mueang was initially closed in September 2006 on the same day that the $3 billion Suvarnabhumi airport opened its doors.
But the new airport has been plagued by problems ranging from cracks in the runways to complaints about safety and sanitation, which prompted authorities to reopen Don Mueang six months later.
Mr Noppadon said that at the Asean meeting, foreign ministers will consider sending Surin Pitsuwan, the bloc secretary-general, to assess the damage in Burma.
The meeting would also look at what the group could do to handle natural disasters in future.
Cyclone Nargis ripped through southwest Burma on May 2, leaving more than 133,000 people dead or missing. Up to 2.5 million survivors are affected.
Asean member states, including Singapore and Thailand, have individually sent aid to Burma, whose ruling generals have accepted relief goods but have refused to allow most foreign disaster experts in to supervise the aid effort.
On Saturday, 30 Thai health workers arrived in Burma to treat cyclone victims. They are part of 100 medical workers from Asia who were allowed by the junta to provide help.
An aid group warned yesterday that thousands of children in Burma could starve to death within weeks unless emergency food supplies reach them soon. Save the Children said that the youngsters could succumb to hunger "within two to three weeks."
"We are worried that many children in the affected areas are now suffering from severe acute malnourishment, the most serious level of hunger," said Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children UK.
"When people reach this stage, they can die in a matter of days."
Some may already be dying from lack of food, she said.
As many as 40% of the needy are believed to be children. Aid workers have become frustrated by the junta's restrictions on the relief operation.
Save the Children said 30,000 children in the delta region of Burma were malnourished before the storm.
The cyclone destroyed food stocks and rice paddies in the key food producing region, raising fears of a famine. "With hundreds of thousands of people still not getting aid, many of these children will not survive much longer," Ms Whitbread said.
Discuss
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Tell a friend
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