Relief workers slowly moved into Myanmar's cyclone-ravaged delta after the junta started to open access, as the United Nations reported on Thursday that all its visa requests had been approved.

But despite an apparent thawing in its stance on foreign aid, the regime launched a tirade against opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party, accusing the National League for Democracy of stoking unrest among storm survivors.

"The NLD is attempting to incite the outrage of the victims and problems, and to make the public outrage go into riots," the state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper said in an editorial.

The junta's lashing of its main opponents came after it extended Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest by one year, provoking an international outcry.

60% of survivors still waiting...

Nearly four weeks after Cyclone Nargis pummelled large swathes of Myanmar and left more than 133 000 people dead and missing, foreign aid has still only reached 40 percent of the 2.4 million needy survivors, the UN says.

Myanmar's isolated military had largely barred foreign aid workers from gaining access to the southwest Irrawaddy Delta, which bore the brunt of the cyclone.

Last Friday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he had received assurances that the regime would grant access to all foreign relief workers, and many aid agencies are now waiting for those promises to be fulfilled.

John Sparrow, Bangkok-based spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said they had 30 foreign staff in Yangon, most of whom were awaiting permission from the regime to move into the delta.

"We want to move now. We have to move now. This amount of time after a disaster we should be providing water. It's absolutely critical," he told AFP.

"Imagine the stress of a family with children living without proper shelter, without food and without medical care," he said.

"The longer it goes on, the greater the suffering of the people... The need for clean water is enormous. As time passes, the danger for waterborne diseases increases."

Hopeful

Richard Horsey, spokesperson for the United Nations emergency relief arm, said the situation was "tentatively positive", with international UN staff able to move into the delta after giving the regime 48 hours' notice.

Overseas staff were also now receiving permission to get into the country, after weeks of delays.

"We haven't had any problems with visas for the last week to 10 days and yesterday (Wednesday) we were issued with the last of the 45 visas we were awaiting," he said.

Several international aid workers have reported receiving travel approval for the delta in the last week, including six from the UN children's fund Unicef, five from World Vision and two from Save the Children.

A group of 30 Thai medical staff also travelled with supplies into Myanmar early on Thursday.

The junta is still not accepting any aid delivered on military vessels, however, and US Navy ships which have been idling off the coast of Myanmar loaded with crucial supplies could leave soon, a top US commander said.

"Absent a green light from Burmese officials, I don't think she (one of the ships) will be there for weeks," Admiral Timothy Keating, who heads the US Pacific Command, told a news conference.

After weeks of insisting that the junta could deliver aid themselves, the New Light of Myanmar on Thursday maintained a softer stance.

It said many rescue tasks has been carried out, "largely due to the donations made by internal and international donors."

But volunteers returning from the delta area said tragic scenes remained, with dead bodies and the corpses of animals still rotting in the fields, and villagers relying on survival skills in the absence of outside help.

"Villagers are very familiar with standing on their own," Myo Thant, who has been delivering private supplies to the delta, told AFP.

"They rebuilt small huts, took off clothes from dead bodies, found drinking water from the rain or from other villages — most of the survival work was done on their own."

AFP