Some three weeks after Cyclone Nargis reports say the Burmese regime is prepared to allow foreign aid workers into the country.
The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the decision was a breakthrough; but it is still not clear how much access aid workers will get.
The UN estimates that only 25 per cent of people who need help have been reached.
Urgent need
Christian Aid has been calling on the Burmese regime to allow more access to international aid, including both supplies and field workers.
It is increasingly urgent to get more staff in the country as the national staff of local organisations are working flat out to reach those in need.
'The local aid workers have not stopped working in three weeks. It is very hard on the local workers as they feel that all the responsibility is on their shoulders,’ said the Christian Aid spokesman.
Working non-stop
A female worker of a Christian Aid partner organization said she and her colleagues had been working non-stop since the cyclone.
'How can we take a day off when we know so many of our fellow citizens are suffering? This weekend I was in an aid truck delivering supplies to the Delta area. We drove past thousands of people lining the road who were begging for food.
'It was the most upsetting sight, especially as we could not stop as we had to deliver our supplies to the most remote areas. That makes us all feel terrible and we want to be able to do much more.
Need to be strong
'This week I spoke to survivors about what had happened to them. Many of the children had lost their parents and when I heard their stories I felt like crying, but I had to be strong.’
Local aid groups, including Christian Aid partner organisations, are providing aid for hundreds of thousands of people affected by the cyclone. But with international supplies only trickling in and foreign aid workers banned from the delta area, much more needs to be done.
Lin Sein is a 47-year-old pastor. His congregation in Rangoon includes hundreds of migrant workers who have flocked to the former capital from rural areas in the past few years seeking a better life.
Turning to the pastor
After the cyclone, with no one else to turn to and no government officials willing to help them, many of those from the devastated delta area contacted the pastor for help.
'Most of them cannot get time off from their jobs as maids or in factories. And also they earn so little, they don't have the money to travel to the delta. So they came to me and I wanted to do what I could to help them.'
So Lin Sein made a gruelling eight-day mercy mission criss-crossing Burma’s cyclone-ravaged Irrawaddy delta by any means possible.
Eight day mission
'In some villages I went to people have received very little help,' said Lin Sein. 'They were surviving on some money that their relatives had managed to give them and harvesting some small amounts of rice.
'I don't know what they are going to do when that runs out. They have lost their houses, boats, nets and cattle.
'The streams are full of dirty water and if you even touch it you get a rash.
'Some people are so traumatized they seem to have gone mad. One woman was wandering the streets with her two children shouting and crying. Who is going to help these people?'