At least two U.N. planes carrying much-needed humanitarian supplies landed in Myanmar on Thursday. But the country's military government is still blocking supplies from the United States from reaching victims of Cyclone Nargis.
There is still no approval for U.S. cargo planes filled with drinking water and other aid materials to land inside Myanmar, also known as Burma.
A U.S. disaster assistance response team also is grounded in Thailand, until Myanmar issues visas for the group. U.S. Ambassador Eric John said the United States is ready to help, with more than $3 million in aid.
A top U.S. aid official says the U.S. may consider air-dropping supplies for survivors even without permission from the Myanmar junta.
But Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that's not a real possibility.
"One would hope that as the Burmese leadership surveys this massive scale of death and human suffering in Burma," Ambassador John said, "they'll see that it's imperative that humanitarian assistance flows in."
An international aid worker with British-based Save the Children in Myanmar said the group has been giving out rice, salt, cooking oil and cash to help victims of the deadly storm.
The U.S. military stepped up preparations Thursday for a humanitarian mission, readying some ships and Marines that are in the region for a multinational exercise.
Though the country's military-ruled government had not accepted the offer of help, the U.S. Air Force also moved more airplanes to a staging area in neighboring Thailand, Air Force spokeswoman Megan Orton said at the Pentagon.
As the humanitarian disaster in Myanmar unfolded this week, the Navy and Marine Corps happened to have ships and thousands of service members in the Gulf of Thailand for a multinational exercise on humanitarian missions — an exercise that started Thursday.
The group includes the USS Essex, the USS Juneau and the USS Harpers Ferry. The Essex is an amphibious assault ship with 23 helicopters aboard, including 19 capable of lifting cargo from ship to shore, as well as about 1,500 Marines.
The Essex and Juneau were expected to depart the gulf later Thursday when they finished off-loading the helicopters, then steam around the Malay Peninsula through the Strait of Malacca and into the Andaman Sea to be in position closer to Myanmar.
The Harpers Ferry and the destroyer USS Mustin were expected to start their transit toward Myanmar on Friday, according to a defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
Officials said that although Myanmar's junta has not agreed to allow U.S. humanitarian assistance, it did ask for other U.S. help — satellite pictures of the cyclone-devastated areas.
"They asked our defense attache at the embassy in Rangoon for some imagery, and we provided it," said Marine Maj. Stuart Upton, a Pentagon spokesman.
From NPR reports and The Associated Press
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