'People Are Just Desperate'

MYANMAR, May 20, 2008 — -- Cyclone Nargis devastated Myanmar May 2, leaving 134,000 people dead or missing.

The country's military government, or junta, initially refused to allow international aid and aid workers into Myanmar, worsening an already dire situation, according to international critics.

Tuesday, the United Nations said the junta had finally permitted the World Food Program to use its helicopters to bring aid to the millions left destitute by the cyclone.

An aid worker with the U.S.-based non-governmental organization, Operation Blessing International, was one of the few able to gain entry into the affected areas. He spoke to ABC News about trucks full of aid bypassing villagers, rotting corpses and a government's indifference that has cost thousands of lives. For safety reasons, we cannot reveal his name.

ABC News: We have been hearing figures as high as 200,000 as the most recent death toll. Where are you getting your figures?

The figure of 200,000 is a projected figure that other aid workers and I have been speculating about based on the current death toll, which we all agree is much, much too low based on the facts on the ground, seeing how many people are affected by this and how serious the disaster is given how many people on the ground could still die because they have been denied access to foreign aid.

I was fortunate to be one of the first foreign aid workers to gain access to the affected area after the cyclone hit. It was very hard for most of us to gain visas. I was there just a few days after the cyclone hit, and at that time the Delta region was still open for foreign workers to get in, so I was able to organize a team and very quickly access the region, and we were doing food distributions and that was about two days before the military sealed off the Delta region.

ABC News: What were the most poignant moments during your time there?

When we were first able to access the Delta region, we entered villages that were completely cut off. We were using canoes to get aid out to these very remote locations, and when we arrived it was just a grim situation. Houses were destroyed. The people were sitting around completely shell-shocked. The children were very sick. We had already started to see cases of children with diarrhea. And they needed everything; they needed food, shelter and water and very quickly. We didn't have enough to give to these people that first day. We told them we would be back the next day with the right supplies.

The next day when we tried to access the village we were coming by road to get to the region, and we were stopped at a military checkpoint by armed military personnel, and they told us we could not pass through and deliver the aid we wanted to. And that moment for me was very poignant because at that moment, the Burmese government was committing a huge crime by disallowing vital aid from reaching its own citizens -- willfully knowing that those people may die if they did that.

ABC News: How would you describe the actions of the Burmese military junta?