State radio in Burma has reported that more than 22,000 people were killed in Saturday cyclone and over 40,000 others are missing. Dan Griffith sent this report from neighboring Thailand.

The Burmese authorities said many were killed in the massive wave triggered by the storm. Ten thousand people are thought to have died in one town alone. Elsewhere eye-witnesses descried rice fields strewn with bodies, and desperate survivors without food or shelter. Aid agencies are now beginning a major relief operation to help the hundreds and thousands of people left homeless. But Burma, isolated and impoverished, has long being wary of the international community. Doubts remain about how much access the regime will give to aid workers. And there are also concerns about the logistics of reaching remote areas that have been cut off from the outside world.