International aid began to trickle into Myanmar, but the stricken Irrawaddy delta, the nation's rice bowl where most of the victims perished and over 40,000 are missing, remained cut off from the world.
With as many as 1 million left homeless after Cyclone Nargis hit over the weekend, the international community was struggling to deliver aid in the military-ruled country, which normally seeks to shut out foreign officials and restricts their access inside the country.
State television news Wednesday quoted Yangon official Gen Tha Aye as reassuring people that the situation was "returning to normal." He was shown thanking volunteers and visiting the village of Naungbo, outside Yangon, where locals were cutting apart downed trees and brush to clear the roads.
At a morning market in the Yangon suburb of Kyimyindaing, there was little sign of a return to normalcy.
"Come, come the fish is very fresh," a fish monger shouted to shoppers, but an angry woman snapped back: "Even if the fish is fresh, I have no water to cook it!"
Electricity was restored in a small portion of Yangon but most city residents, who rely on electric wells, had no water.
Vendors sold bottled water at 500 kyat ($0.50, euro0.32) a liter, more than double the normal price. A standard 33-kilogram (73-pound) bag of rice had doubled in price to 45,000 kyat ($40, euro25), an astronomical price in a country where many scrape by on $2 (euro1.30) a day.
Cooking oil, another basic necessity, was priced at 8,000 kyat ($7, euro5) per kilogram, up from the normal price of 4,600 kyat ($4, euro2.50).
The U.N.'s World Food Program said late Tuesday it has begun distributing aid in damaged areas of Yangon, where 800 tons of food had arrived.
The WFP said some villages have been almost totally eradicated and vast rice-growing areas are wiped out by Cyclone Nargis, which hit Myanmar early Saturday.
Images from state television showed large trees and electricity poles sprawled across roads and roofless houses ringed by large sheets of water in the Irrawaddy River delta region, which is regarded as Myanmar's rice bowl.
Buddhist monks and Catholic nuns wielding knives and axes joined Yangon residents Tuesday in clearing roads of ancient, fallen trees that were once the city's pride. Soldiers were out on the streets in large numbers for the first time since the cyclone hit.
Britain said it will contribute up to 5 million pounds (US$9.8 million; euro6.4 million) in initial relief funds and also will send an emergency field team to help with international relief efforts and support foreign aid staff already in Myanmar.
US President George W. Bush called on Myanmar's military junta to allow the U.S. to help. The White House said the U.S. will send more than US$3 million to help cyclone victims, up from an initial emergency contribution of US$250,000.
Bush said Washington was prepared to use the U.S. Navy to help search for the dead and missing. However, the Myanmar military, which regularly accuses the United States of trying to subvert the regime, was unlikely to accept US military presence in its territory.
The cyclone came only a week ahead of a key referendum on a constitution backed by Myanmar's military leaders as an important step forward on their "roadmap to democracy."
State radio also said that Saturday's vote would be delayed until May 24 in 40 of 45 townships in the Yangon area and seven in the Irrawaddy delta, which took the brunt of the weekend storm. But it indicated that the balloting would proceed in other areas as scheduled.
The decision drew swift criticism from dissidents and human rights groups who question the credibility of the vote and urged the junta to focus on disaster victims.
Critics, including the United Nations, the United States and human rights groups, have questioned whether the constitution will lead to democracy.
Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. Its government has been widely criticized for suppression of pro-democracy parties such as the one led by Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has been under house arrest for almost 12 of the past 18 years.
At least 31 people were killed and thousands more were detained when the military cracked down on peaceful protests in September led by Buddhist monks and democracy advocates.