Portraits of cyclone victims hang on what is left of their home in the Irrawaddy delta, Burma. Photograph: Getty
Now that the Burmese government has finally indicated it may allow all aid workers into the country, the task of reaching Burma's remoter regions becomes even more pressing. Every night, the dire situation facing hundreds of thousands of cyclone survivors grows more and more desperate. Solutions tailored to Burma just have to be found.
At least one and a half million cyclone survivors remain homeless, many of them hungry, many of them weak, ailing or exhausted. As the rain pours down there is some relief: people can harvest drinking water. But the misery grows, along with the burgeoning health threats. The homeless - a portion of the 2.4 million people the UN estimates have been affected - are facing their 21st night since Cyclone Nargis swept in from the Bay of Bengal and crossed the Irrawaddy delta. Each night is more wretched than the last. Conditions are worsening all the time, and the need for basic lifesaving aid becomes more urgent.
The danger has been that the frustration surrounding the efforts to help Burma might have ended up becoming the focus - the end, rather than the means. Now aid workers can work more freely, we can move forward.
Today, as they have for the past 20 days, thousands of Burma Red Cross volunteers will be working their way out to the worst affected parts of the delta, doing all that they can with the little they have to help shattered communities. These volunteers, who have had the access that international staff and organisations have not, will continue to hand out basic relief items, provide simple first aid, and carry out assessments to help guide our response.
"There are many villages in Bogale which we are still trying to reach," one Red Cross volunteer told us when he returned to Rangoon at the beginning of this week. "I was able to reach about 20 villages by boat. In one village we visited, there were over 15,000 people before the cyclone, but now only about 2,600 are left."
More assistance is reaching the country and this week Red Cross and Red Crescent aid - much of it emergency shelter material - will increase dramatically. More than 30 flights have arrived in Rangoon carrying in excess of 540 tonnes of essential relief goods. Another 200 tonnes have been cleared for this week and more flights are being confirmed daily.
But it remains a race against the clock and the logistical challenges grow with the rain. What reaches the cyclone-devastated areas can't get there fast enough, and what does get through is not enough. A huge amount must follow.
Flexibility and creative thinking - as well as diplomacy - are needed to push the efforts forward. The Red Cross is looking at a rolling operation where volunteers will distribute shelter materials in one area, and assess the next before they return to Rangoon. Then they'll go back to deliver and assess again, and so on.
Other options being considered include harmonising shelter and relief distributions. Distributions in small hamlets that dot the delta could see essential household goods, such as blankets, bed mats and kitchen essentials, provided along with shelter. To this end we are setting up teams, working from hubs throughout the delta. The focus of the international federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies will be to train these teams and give them resources and guidance.
But it's been 21 nights in the rainswept delta, 21 nights without shelter, without clean water and food and without basic first aid. "There are many more villages that I could not reach yet," said the Red Cross volunteer in Rangoon. We have to find ways to move forward.
