Millions of people in Myanmar have been left homeless by the devastating Cyclone Nargis and piles of bodies have begun rotting in the disaster zone.

Andrew Kirkwood, director of the aid agency Save the Children, said on Wednesday that he believed millions had been left homeless although he didn’t “know how many millions”.

Speaking by telephone to the AFP from Yangon, Myanma’r former capital, Kirkwood also said: “There are 41,000 people missing but most people assume most of those 41,000 missing are dead.”

Cyclone Nargis, which slammed into Myanmar’s southern coast on Saturday, has left at least 22,000 people dead and another 41,000 missing by the official count, but the toll is expected to rise.

Harrowing tales

Kirkwood said the organisation’s staff had gathered harrowing eyewitness accounts from the worst-hit area of the Irrawaddy Delta region, a low-lying agricultural region which was inundated by a huge storm surge.

“One team came across thousands of people killed in one township, with piles of rotting bodies lying on the ground as the water had receded,” he said.

He said there were “really worrying” reports that people were dying in the town of Pyinkaya in the southwest of the delta, home to 150,000 people, which received no supplies of food or clean water since the storm hit. “Assistance hasn’t reached them yet and they are dying - completely isolated,” he said.

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