Myanmar deaths may top 100,000

YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) — The death toll from the cyclone that ravaged the Irrawaddy delta in Myanmar may exceed 100,000, the senior U.S. diplomat in the military-ruled country said Wednesday.

"The information we are receiving indicates over 100,000 deaths," said the U.S. charge d’affaires in Yangon, Shari Villarosa.

The U.S. figure is almost five times the 22,000 the Myanmar government has estimated.

The U.S. estimate is based on data from an international non-governmental organization, Villarosa said without naming the group. She called the situation in Myanmar "more and more horrendous."

"I think most of the damage was caused by these 12-foot storm surges," she said.

Villarosa also said that about 95 percent of the buildings in the delta region were destroyed when Cyclone Nargis battered the area late Friday into Saturday.

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice once again called on the junta to allow aid into the country and said she is speaking with leaders from other nations who may be able to help persuade Myanmar’s leaders to do so.

"It should be a simple matter," Rice said. "This is not a matter of politics; this is a matter of a humanitarian crisis, and it should be a matter that the government of Burma wants to see its people receive the help that is available to them, and so we are speaking with governments that might have influence with Burma."

Myanmar is also known as Burma.

The United States has pledged $3.25 million and offered to send Navy ships to the region to help relief efforts — if Myanmar’s government agrees.

The U.S. military has flown six cargo helicopters onto a Thai airbase as Washington awaits permission to go into the south Asian country, two senior military officials told CNN’s Barbara Starr.

Villarosa said 70,000 people are missing in the Irrawaddy Delta, which has a population of nearly 6 million people. The official Myanmar government figure for the missing is 41,000.

"I can only assume that the longer the delay, the more victims that are created," Villarosa said.

Little aid has reached the area since Nargis hit, and on Wednesday, crowds of hungry survivors stormed reopened shops in the devastated Irrawaddy delta.

The United Nations urged the military junta to grant visas to international relief workers amid estimates of 1 million homeless.

A United Nations official said that nearly 2,000 square miles (5,000 square km) of the hard-hit delta are still underwater.