IN A COUNTRY WHERE LIFE IS ORWELLIAN, death has now become Orwellian too. The foot soldiers of the hated Burmese military junta, who once specialised in "disappearing" living dissidents, are today "disappearing" the dead, and hiding corpses in a pitiful attempt to keep the full scale of the death toll of cyclone Nargis from the prying eyes of the rest of the world.

In the town of Bogolay, where anywhere between 10,000 and 50,000 people may be dead, locals talk of the government "taking the bodies to a special place". The junta believes - probably correctly - that if the true extent of the horror was known to the outside world it would be impossible to prevent foreign powers intervening with humanitarian aid. In the totalitarian mindset of the military rulers, any foreign intervention will lead to the destruction of the dictatorship they have held for more than 40 years.

Although the final cost in human misery is as yet unknown, conservative estimates have it that some 100,000 are dead, with 1.5 million homeless and at risk from disease, dirty water and exposure. The real figure could be more than 216,000 or even higher. The military junta, however, continues to maintain that just 22,000 are dead with 41,000 missing. Meanwhile, state TV airs programmes with smiling actors singing about national unity, and happy army officers handing out food to thankful peasants. In reality, the paranoid military, fearing that outside intervention might assist dissidents, has prevented huge amounts of aid getting to its own people - thereby compounding their suffering and risking catastrophe by inviting starvation and cholera to pick over the shattered remaining population.

The Irrawaddy delta, the area worst affected, is, in places, like a mass graveyard, with corpses floating in flood water or lying bloated and blackened by the sun in ruined fields where they have been eaten at by dogs. Washed-up boats flounder among the corpses and flattened towns. Villagers tell of children trying to escape flood waters by climbing trees only to die from the bites of snakes hiding in the branches. Monasteries, the backbone of the pro-democracy movement, are doing all they can to help the tens of thousands of living victims, but with no medicines, little food and exhausted water supplies they too are becoming morgues. And now soldiers, starving and desperate for food as the junta's ability to run the country wains hourly, are marauding through cut-off hamlets, pillaging the homes of helpless survivors at gunpoint.

More than a week after the cyclone hit Burma with such catastrophic force that the devastation it wrought could surpass that of the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, its battered survivors are beginning to succumb to infected wounds, chronic diarrhoea, malaria and tropical illnesses such as dengue fever. In the town of Labutta alone, which saw 80% of its infrastructure damaged or destroyed, a third of all patients have laceration wounds caused by debris being whipped into the air by the tempest - winds reached speeds of up to 120mph at the height of the cyclone.

With the country in a state of collapse, there is outrage and frustration in Burma and across the world at the junta deliberately preventing aid and aid workers into the country to help the Burmese people. As if to add insult to injury, the government insisted on holding an electoral vote yesterday which will further tighten the generals' stranglehold on the population, at the same time that the military has been dragging its heels over granting visas to aid workers and impounded life-saving food parcels.

Greg Beck, the southeast Asia programme director for the International Rescue Committee, said: "This is the second disaster. First there was the cyclone and the surge of water, the second will come if there is no access to food, water and shelter. They will start dying."

IN some of the worst-hit areas, 20% of children have diarrhoea, and cases of malaria are rising. Even if aid was being allowed unfettered into the country, the nation's health service is creaking - Burma spends less on its health service than North Korea.

While the generals say they will accept "relief in cash and kind" - such as mosquito nets and water purification tablets - they baulk at opening the country's doors to foreign aid workers and equipment such as helicopters and boats which would help distribute aid. One diplomatic source at the United Nations told the Sunday Herald: "I don't know what these guys think the problem will be. Maybe they believe that there will be guns and ammunition for the pro-democracy movement hidden in bags of rice."

Panic is now gripping cities and towns inundated with refugees, with fears of rioting and looting increasing. Some 10,000 survivors have swept into the town of Myaung Mya, most billeted in schools and monasteries. But the government has provided no assistance - at one school, where 900 refugees are staying, teachers begged passers-by for food to help the survivors. They only have enough for 300 people. Women and children are being fed first - so far, the men have not eaten.

But goodwill is running short. One businessman said: "How many more days are we going to be able to feed them? People here can barely afford to feed themselves." Shops are now locking their doors before darkness falls for fear of looters. "These people have nothing left to lose," the businessman added. "Maybe they will just go for it."

Regardless of the junta's seeming indifference to getting aid to its people, the United Nations is appealing for almost £100 million to assist the Burmese people, even though its diplomats admit that it is not confident food, tents and water will make it to those most in need.

The United Nations World Food Programme briefly suspended its aid airlift after 38 tonnes of high-energy biscuits - enough to feed 95,000 people - and medical supplies were impounded at Rangoon airport. The generals have approved just one US aid flight, which is due to arrive tomorrow carrying water purification equipment. The seizure of food supplies has raised questions about whether aid will reach those it is intended for, or find its way into the army stores.

The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, has implored the generals to accept aid and humanitarian workers "without hindrance", adding that the survival of the Burmese people is at stake. Moon has so far been unable to contact the Burmese leader, General Than Shwe, to speak to him in person about the crisis. Shwe has not been seen in public for days.

"We should not lose any further time," the UN leader said. "Many people have already died and if we do not take proper action at this time there may be many more people who will die."

Moon also vowed that "United Nations aid workers will not engage in any political debate" in an attempt to reassure the junta and ease concerns that foreigners might talk-up political change among the population.

The cold-blooded inadequacy of the generals is underscored by the large number of foreign aid workers who have so far not been granted visas and are currently left waiting in Bangkok. Out of 16 visa applications by the World Food Programme, only one has been granted. The Burmese embassy in Bangkok which grants visas is now closed until tomorrow. The American government has tried to reassure Burma by saying "we will come, provide assistance and then leave".

Morale is now wavering among the handful of aid workers who have made it into the country. Tim Costello, the chief executive of WorldVision Australia - which has a long history of working inside Burma - described how his staff broke into tears when they realised the insurmountable scale of the disaster.

"The staff are under enormous emotional stress, not just to get the trucks out and rolling, but from the guilt, frustration and pain of wishing they could be doing more and finding they can't," he said. "It takes a huge toll. We are just steeling ourselves, keeping hope alive and saying to ourselves that people's lives depend on us staying positive and pulling through."

THE logistical problems they face are fearsome. Petrol pumps have run dry in most cities, forcing aid trucks to queue for up to six hours in Rangoon, forming enormous lines that stretch for miles through the city.

Once fuelled and loaded with aid, the drivers then have to wend their way through roads littered with uprooted trees. Many of the bridges in the delta are unable to bear the weight of goods lorries or have been destroyed by the floods. The Red Cross has acquired just one boat from the Burmese government, but still hopes to distribute essentials such as water treatment tablets, mosquito nets and food in the delta.

From his hotel room in Rangoon, the capital until it was moved by the junta in 2006, Costello described a devastated urban landscape, the wooden houses of the poorest of Burma's people ripped apart by winds or smashed by uprooted trees. In Rangoon, at least, military, monks and the public are all out on the streets, cutting up felled palm trees with chainsaws or nailing sheets of metal on to roofs. In the countryside, though there are reports of gangs armed with dah - a traditional Burmese sword - prowling for food. Military vigilantes are also said to have attacked an aid convoy to feed their families.

Murray Forgie, who works with Burmese dissidents in Scotland, has been in contact with survivors. "It's a very worrying trend that there are vigilante thug groups that are desperate and trying to get hold of aid for themselves," he said.

"The junta are losing control hour by hour. These soldiers have families, which will have been affected like everyone else, and they are prepared to act on their own to feed them."

Scots are starting to pledge their support, both with money and physical aid. Paul Strachan, owner of tourist company Pandaw, owns a fleet of pleasure cruisers in Burma, which he is planning to fill with aid and send to the Irrawaddy delta. The two ships have been donated to Medecins Sans Frontieres, Save the Children and Merlin.

He said: "There are lots of difficulties working in Burma, but our ships are flagged to the country, they're licensed to go anywhere within the inland water system, which is vast. In a country like Burma you don't ask, you just get on with it." He has already raised $70,000 (about £36,000) in donations from people that have been passengers on his ship and hopes to raise $100,000.

Food is becoming scarce, particularly as the Irrawaddy region is the rice bowl for the whole country. Prices for a kilogram of rice have soared from 2000 kyat (about £157 at the official exchange rate) to 4000 kyat, pricing most of the Burmese population out of the market. More than 17,000 local volunteers are involved in handing out aid, but only a few Red Cross staff have been allowed in the country. Fears that the government would impound food led them to only fly half-full planes in on Friday, with 3000 shelter kits, but they are hoping that over the weekend more of their staff will be granted visas and be able to enter the country by tomorrow.

Moira Reddick, head of disaster management at the Red Cross, said: "Burma is simply not in a disaster-prone context. Bangladesh had a cyclone before Christmas, but they had an early warning system. They're used to international organisations, they're used to processing visas. This is a very different situation. Burma hasn't heard of most of the NGOs who want to come in, and there are practical difficulties; there has been no power in the capital for the past week. I'd like to highlight the difficulties they are facing alongside whatever attitude they might have."

On the ground, staff remain positive. Michael Annear, regional disaster response co-ordinator for the Red Cross, who has been in Rangoon since Tuesday, said: "We need to give people safe water, protection from the elements, food, hygiene, health issues, provide people with essential items to rebuild their lives. Then we can work with them again to help support that even more in the most expedient way."