The UN estimates that aid has reached about one million people, not including the Myanmar government's own emergency response. As many as 2.4 million people are thought to have been severely affected by the cyclone, which struck the Southeast Asian country on May 5.

Holmes said there had been some progress on access for international aid workers and better logistical arrangements were now in place, particularly after Ban met last Friday with Senior-General Than Shwe.

Holmes, who also serves as UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, called for more efforts to help the victims.

"A lot of people have received either nothing or not enough. That's why we need to step up the aid effort," he said.

In Geneva, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that between 10 and 15 international flights are coming in every day to Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, and that air-bridge flights from the logistics hub at Bangkok's Don Muang Airport to Yangon are now fully operational.

In total, 169 international relief flights have arrived so far in Myanmar.

Elizabeth Byrs, the OCHA spokeswoman, expressed the hope that the UN World Food Program (WFP) would be able to start operating 10 helicopters in Myanmar as soon as possible, after the government gave the go-ahead to their deployment.

So far, WFP and its partners have delivered over 3,000 tons of food aid reaching some 460,000 people, Byrs said.

During Ban's latest trip to Asia, the UN chief also visited China's Yingxiu, a town at the epicenter of an 8.0 magnitude earthquake that struck on May 12.

During the trip, Ban extended his "heartfelt condolences to the people of Myanmar and of China, expressing my admiration for the courage and resilience of the survivors and all those trying to help them."

(Xinhua News Agency May 28, 2008)