The military-run Myaddy television station said five regions had been declared disaster zones following Saturday's storm, which packed winds of up to 190kmh.

It said at least 351 people had been killed by Cyclone Nargis, including 109 who lived on Haing Gyi Island off the country's south-west coast. Haing Gyi is among the worst-affected areas, with 20,000 houses destroyed and 92,706 people left homeless.

Many of the others died in the low-lying Irrawaddy delta. Seventy-five per cent of the buildings in the Irrawaddy's Labutta township had collapsed, said Myaddy TV.

'The Irrawaddy delta was hit extremely hard, not only because of the wind and rain but because of the storm surge,' said Mr Chris Kaye, the acting United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Yangon.

The meteorological bureau had forecast the cyclone would cause tides to rise as much as 3.7m above normal levels, although no details of the actual rise were available yesterday.

The UN tried to send teams to assess the damage, but their efforts were hampered by roads clogged with debris and phone lines that were down.

Witnesses in Yangon said the storm blew the roofs off hundreds of houses, damaged hotels, schools and hospitals and cut electricity to the entire city.

Besides Yangon and the Irrawaddy region, the other severely hit regions of Bago, Karen and Mon were also designated as disaster zones.

The state-owned New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported yesterday that the international airport in Yangon remained shut, and that domestic flights were being diverted to Mandalay, 560km to the north.

'It is a bad situation. Almost all the houses are smashed. People are in a terrible situation,' another UN official in Yangon said.

'All the roads are blocked. There is no water. There is no electricity.'

Yangon residents ventured out yesterday to buy construction materials to repair their homes, only to find prices escalating.

The cost of petrol jumped from US$2.50 (S$3.40) to US$10 a gallon - which is about 4 litres - on the black market, and everything from eggs to construction supplies had tripled in price, residents said.

Some people expressed anger that the military-led government had done little so far to help with the cleanup.

'Where are all those uniformed people who are always ready to beat civilians?' said one man who refused to be identified for fear of retribution. 'They should come out in full force and help clean up the areas and restore electricity.'

The Forum for Democracy in Burma and other dissident groups outside Myanmar called on the international community to provide urgent humanitarian assistance and urged the junta to allow aid groups to operate freely - something it has been reluctant to do in the past.

Mr Michael Annear, a regional disaster management delegate for the International Federation of the Red Cross in Bangkok, said his agency had teams in Yangon distributing shelter kits and other relief supplies, adding that the agency had freed up an additional 200,000 Swiss francs (S$258,000) for the relief effort.

Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar ahead of a scheduled referendum on Saturday on the country's military-backed draft Constitution.

The authorities have not yet said whether they would postpone the vote.

ASSOCIATED PRESS