By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS,AP
Posted: 2008-05-09 13:28:42

GENEVA (AP) - No helicopters. Almost no boats. Floods and fallen trees on the roads.

Relief workers are far from reaching most of the hundreds of thousands of people without food or safe drinking water in cyclone-devastated Myanmar, organizers said Friday.

With up to 1.9 million people, including those left homeless, injured or subject to disease and hunger as a result of the storm last weekend, only one out of 10 have received some kind of aid in the six days since the cyclone hit, Danish Red Cross Director Anders Ladekarl said.

“There are all kinds of problems,” Ladekarl said in a satellite telephone interview from Myanmar to Danish broadcaster DR.

“There are problems to get the aid inside (Myanmar), and there are problems to get the aid out to the delta area,” Ladekarl said. “We are simply lacking transportation. There are almost no boats and no helicopters. This is really a nightmare to make this operation run.”

“It really is a complicated operation,” he added.

“The Military Balance 2008,” a widely recognized assessment on armaments around the world, says Myanmar’s armed forces have a total of 66 helicopters, most of which are small and old. It was unclear how many were operational.

As aid agencies awaited government clearance for more aid shipments, staff and transport, tensions grew with what the U.N. said was the military junta’s seizure Friday of supplies that the U.N.’s World Food Program had flown into the country for cyclone victims.

WFP spokesman Paul Risley said it was unclear why the food had been seized, but that the agency “has no choice” but to suspend further aid shipments until the matter is resolved.

But the government denied it had seized the aid, saying it had only taken control of the supplies to distribute them.

WFP then announced it would resume deliveries with two flights on Saturday “while discussions continue with the government of Myanmar on the distribution of the food that was flown in today, and not released to WFP.”

The statement by World Food Program chief spokeswoman Nancy Roman said the food seized Friday was enough “to feed 95,000 hungry people in Myanmar.”…