The military government said nearly 22,500 people were killed and 41,000 missing in the most devastating cyclone in Asia since 1991 when a storm killed 143,000 in neighbouring Bangladesh.
A doctor in the Irrawaddy delta town of Labutta said villagers had told him thousands died when a series of huge waves slammed into their homes. People clung to trees in a desperate fight for survival.
"All the victims were brought to the town and I asked them, 'How many of you survived?' and they said about 200, 300," Aye Kyu told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
"Then I asked them, 'How many people in your area?' They said about 5,000. The waves were 12, 13, 20 feet high and when the houses were covered in water, they stayed on the roof but the houses were destroyed by strong winds," he said.
In one town alone, Bogalay, 10,000 people were killed, the reclusive military government has said in a town-by-town list of casualties and damage.
As the military's relief operations kicked up a gear, state-run Burma TV showed footage of bedraggled survivors lining up on banks of mud to be flown by helicopter out of some of the worst-hit villages.
Disease, hunger and thirst now pose a major threat to hundreds of thousands of survivors of Cyclone Nargis, aid agencies said.
They urged Burma's military rulers to open the doors to international humanitarian relief as hundreds of thousands are homeless in the swamplands of the delta southwest of the biggest city Yangon, which was also hard hit by last weekend's storm.
Burma TV, the main official source for the number of casualties, on Wednesday re-broadcast Tuesday night's news bulletin. The TV station, monitored outside Burma, reported 22,464 killed and 41,054 missing.
HELICOPTERS DROP SUPPLIES
