Mourning for Cyclone Nargis victims

Burma's ruling military junta has declared three days of official mourning for the victims of Cyclone Nargis.

Flags will be lowered to half-mast starting on Tuesday morning.

The move followed a promise by Burma to accept significantly more international aid for the millions of people in need.

Burma agreed to the creation of a taskforce from ten south-east Asian nations to co-ordinate the delivery of aid at a meeting of the Asean regional bloc.

But the easing of restrictions fell short of allowing Western charities full access to the affected areas.

The development comes ahead of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon's visit to the country later this week.

Mr Ban's trip is expected to culminate in a rare meeting with junta supremo Than Shwe, who has refused to answer phone calls from the UN since Nargis struck two weeks ago, leaving 134,000 dead and missing and up to 2.5 million destitute.

The UN also wants a conference in Bangkok on May 24 to talk about funds for the relief effort in Burma, also known as Myanmar, where the military government has so far refused to admit large-scale foreign aid for fear it will loosen its 46-year grip on power.

Humanitarian agencies say the death toll from Nargis, already one of the most devastating cyclones to hit Asia, could soar without a massive increase of emergency food, shelter and medicine to the worst-hit region, the Irrawaddy Delta.

Save the Children said research found "30,000 children under the age of five in the cyclone-affected Irrawaddy Delta were already acutely malnourished before the cyclone hit".

It said: "Of those, Save the Children believes that several thousand are at risk of death in the next two to three weeks because of a lack of food."

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