Gordon Brown today urged the Burmese government to give "unfettered access" to humanitarian agencies seeking to help survivors of a devastating cyclone as he sent a Royal Navy ship to help the relief effort.
The prime minister said the authorities' failure to cooperate with international aid agencies was "completely unacceptable", and pledged that Britain would use its period chairing the UN security council to press for action within the next day.
HMS Westminster is now heading for Burma to take part in humanitarian operations in the south-east Asian country, where great swaths of land were devastated.
Speaking at 10 Downing Street, Brown said: "We now estimate that 2 million people face famine or disease as a result of the lack of cooperation of the Burmese authorities. This is completely unacceptable. There must be unfettered access to humanitarian agencies."
Britain has already warned of an "epic" humanitarian disaster after the cyclone, with hundreds of thousands of people lacking clean water, food and shelter, and the Burmese authorities restricting access to foreign aid.
"We are determined to use our membership and, indeed, the chairmanship of the security council to push action forward in the next few days - indeed, in the next day," Brown said.
"It is increasingly important that the Burmese authorities recognise that their lack of cooperation is preventing assistance getting to people, and that unfettered access should be made available immediately."
Douglas Alexander, the international development secretary, will tomorrow join a meeting of EU ministers on how to boost their humanitarian response to the disaster.
Lord Malloch Brown, the minister for Asia and Africa, is also visiting capitals in Asia in the next few days to coordinate aid work.
The opposition leader, David Cameron, said the UN and aid agencies should drop aid from the skies if access to Burma did not improve dramatically within the next 24 hours.
"The sands of time are running out," he told BBC Radio 4's The World at One programme. "What we need to do is say, if the situation hasn't radically improved by Tuesday, then we need to consider the further steps of direct aid being dropped to help people in Burma.
"In the end, what matters is getting aid through to people and feeding them and stopping them from dying."
More planes loaded with emergency supplies were landing in Rangoon today. But UN officials said aid was getting through at only a fraction of the rate needed.
HMS Westminster will join a number of international military vessels already in the region. A French naval ship and a flotilla of US naval ships with 11,000 troops on board are converging in Burmese waters. The US military delivered its first shipment of emergency supplies today.
