The UN's top aid official got a first-hand look at the disaster zone in Burma yesterday, amid frantic talks to convince the regime to take the brakes off a full-scale relief operation.

UN relief coordinator John Holmes delivered a letter to the isolationist junta from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The UN said 2.4 million people were still critically short of aid 17 days after the tragedy struck, and relief agencies warned the most vulnerable survivors would start dying soon unless they got the aid they needed.

Mr Ban himself was to visit the country later in the week, after failing to get junta leader Than Shwe to even take his phone calls in the aftermath of a disaster that has left at least 133,000 people dead or missing.

A UN spokesman in Burma said Mr Holmes visited the disaster area earlier in the day but gave no details about his trip.

Burma's neighbours held an emergency meeting with the regime's foreign minister in Singapore.

After the meeting, the ASEAN bloc announced Burma would accept more foreign medical workers to help with the relief effort. No other details were immediately available.

Whether through fears of being weakened or stubborn insistence on going it alone, Burma has refused to admit enough foreign experts to oversee the aid operation and there are fears time has almost run out for some victims.

Burma has reportedly planned to allow officials from 29 nations to visit cyclone-hit areas in an effort to ease criticism of relief operations.

The UN said only a fraction of the emergency supplies needed were getting through to people in the Irrawaddy Delta.

Source: Herald Sun (Australia)