BURMA’S junta started evicting destitute families from government-run cyclone relief centres yesterday, apparently out of concern the “tented villages” might become permanent.

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.

A Burmese state radio station says the death toll from a devastating cyclone has risen to almost 4,000.

Residents in Burma’s biggest city lit candles today, lined up to buy water and hacked their way through trees felled in a cyclone that killed more than 350 people, destroyed thousands of homes and caused widespread power cuts.