UN chief Ban Ki-moon flew over the cyclone-ravaged landscape of Burma’s heartland today, touching down to learn from officials’ briefings and heart-to-heart chats with storm victims of the misery that he hopes more foreign assistance can alleviate.

Burma’s isolationist government blocked United Nations efforts today to airlift urgently needed food aid to survivors of a cyclone which may have killed more than 100,000 people, UN officials said.