By Nopporn Wong-Anan BANGKOK, May 15 (Reuters) - The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC) said on Thursday it was worried a new storm moving toward cyclone-stricken Myanmar will hamper relief efforts to hundreds of thousands of survivors. A Bangkok-based U.N. weather expert said the storm, which could hit Mynamar on Friday at the earliest, was a "normal small low pressure" event that would last a couple of days. However. IFRC spokesman Joe Lowry told Bangkok-based journalists: "If the second strong storm does hit them, it is the worst possible scenario imagined." "It will affect more people, it will bring more water to it, an area that is already saturated. It won't run off quickly. There is potential of outbreak of disease," Lowry said after returning from Yangon. Heavy rain would make transportation of relief supplies by road, foot and boat more difficult and prompt survivors to move to more distant dry areas, making it harder for aid workers to track them down and give them what they need, Lowry said. Nearly two weeks after Cyclone Nargis tore through the heavily populated Irrawaddy delta rice bowl, leaving up to 128,000 people dead, supplies of food, medicine and temporary shelter have been sent in dribs and drabs to devastated areas. Monasteries and schools are sheltering the homeless and refugees are clamouring to get into the privately run centres rather than government-run camps after the cyclone left an estimated 2.5 million people destitute. While some experts have expressed doubts about Myanmar's ability to handle the disaster without massive help from abroad, the IFRC said Myanmar's Red Cross was working around the clock to help their people. "I have seen tremendous humanitarian effort in the Myanmar Red cross from the volunteers to the senior management. They know where to get aid to the people needed," he said. Myanmar dissidents based in Thailand have accused the junta of mis-using international aid supplies, from re-selling some to taking direct credit for some that was distributed. "You can see from Myanmar TV the name tags of those generals were put over the tag of 'From the Government of Thailand," Aung Moe Zaw of the Democratic Party for New Society told Reuters. But Lowry said he saw no evidence of that. Joanna MacLean, former head of the IFRC delegation in Myanmar and now a donor coordinator based in Bangkok, said the Myanmar Red Cross had a good track record. "They know full well what is needed of them in the time of emergency. Fhey have a track record over the last few years of having been able to deliver," MacLean told reporters. (Reporting by Nopporn Wong-Anan; Editing by Jerry Norton) (For more stories on Myanmar cyclone click on [nSP152717 or follow link to Reuters AlertNet http://www.alertnet.org)
A Red Cross worker delivers rice to a shelter for displaced people affected by Cyclone Nargis on the edge of Yangon May 12, 2008. Between 1.2 and 1.9 million people have ...
