Two UN planes have touched down in Burma bringing much needed supplies to the one million survivors made homeless by Cyclone Nargis.

The planes, carrying high-energy biscuits medicine and other supplies arrived in Rangoon on Thursday from Italy. UN officials said that two more planes would follow.

The planes had waited for two days while the world body negotiated with the military regime to allow the material in.

Burma's reluctance to accept aid from the West has significantly hampered the relief effort. Many aid agencies are still waiting to be granted visas in order to gain access to the country. The US says it has not yet been given permission to fly aid into Burma - despite earlier reports that it had.

Burmese state media say 22,980 people were killed by Cyclone Nargis but there are fears the figure could rise to 100,000. A local military official has told reporters around 80,000 people have died in the remote district of Labutta alone.

Burmese troops are pushing into the affected areas but reports say they lack the resources to deal with a disaster of this magnitude. Meanwhile, survivors are forced to live among thousands of corpses and the risk of disease taking hold is getting worse by the day.

Seventeen Britons in Burma have failed to make contact since the cyclone, the British Foreign Office said.

The article UN aid arrives in Burma originally appeared on 999 Today