The United Nations said 2.4 million people were still critically short of aid after the storm tore through the Southern Myanmar, and relief agencies warned that the most vulnerable survivors are in critical need of help.
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     “Air Cargo Days,” held at Leipzig Halle Airport, home of DHL last month , the world continued recalling a theme struck at the Berlin Air Show also held last month, remembering The Big Lift in Germany that began in June sixty years ago and continued from air bases in the west to a besieged 1948 Berlin City.
     But now comes word that DHL, the Deutsche Post subsidiary has since mid-May been continually delivering innovative wings of mercy in Yangon (Rangoon) with a disaster response team (DRT), specially trained and equipped to help in the catastrophe that befell Myanmar.
     Yangon is the commercial capital of Myanmar, formerly Burma that continues to suffer grievously from Cyclone Nagris.
     Convoys of trucks laden with relief supplies need about 20 minutes to bring the aid arriving at Yangon Airport to a big inland warehouse managed by DHL.
     Since mid-May, a team of four DHL specialists have been on the spot to co-ordinate the disaster management logistics process in the south-east Asian country.
     This work is accomplished with the support of local laborers and donated equipment under an agreement with the UN.
     But the situation here is grim.
     "Comparing Myanmar with previous missions like the earthquakes in Pakistan and Peru or the Tsunami in Sri Lanka, this has been the hardest job so far," says coordinator Chris Weeks in a telephone call with Air Cargo News FlyingTypers.
     "The lack of infrastructure is one of the obstacles and does not really support the job of our people there," adds Susanne Meier, the manager responsible for organizing Deutsche Post World Net's work alongside the UN.
     “The processes are very difficult to plan because there is hardly any communication network,” she added.
     "In case we need urgent information or want to pass it on to others, we have to jump into the car and talk to the people face to face," is how DHL's Weeks describes the daily practice.
     "There's no way we can just pick up the cell phone and ring somebody up."
     As a result, DHL does not know in advance how many freighters with aid supplies on board are landing in Yangon and what kind of goods they exactly have on board.
     Presently, an average of between three and five flights a day arrive in Myanmar's capital.
     They carry practically everything into the country: food, beverages, blankets, tents, equipment for moving collapsed huts and or medical supplies.
     Urgently needed aid since thousands of people are still sticking it out in the Myanmar Delta areas worst affected by the floods.
     After days of hesitation by the military government, the aid is slowly getting on its way.
     DHL and its DRT team were able to get to work here relatively quickly because of the global partnership with the United Nations Office for Coordination of the Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) signed in 2005.
          In the aftermath of natural disasters like earthquakes, floods or volcanic eruptions, nearby airports face the sudden challenge of handling the enormous amount of unplanned incoming aid relief.
     DHL Disaster Response Teams were built to coordinate the logistics on the very spot.
     Therefore, three operation centers worldwide have been set up: in Singapore, Florida and Dubai.
     In case of a catastrophe a team of volunteers will be sent with a UN mandate into the areas of the emergency to coordinate logistics at the airports and accelerate the flow of incoming goods to the affected areas.
     At Yangon airport however, there was no warehouse space available to store, sort and hand over the shipments to the non-governmental aid organizations like the Red Cross and others.
     So the UN was temporarily handed over a 3.000 square meter warehouse of a private rice exporter for storing and sorting the incoming goods.
     For transporting relief items onward to the Delta region, around thirty trucks are available, each able to load a maximum of twelve tons.
     However a huge problem is the fuel shortage and the skyrocketing high costs of diesel.
     Recently French oil company Total rushed in and guaranteed a large donation of fuel for keeping the supply chain going from the warehouse to the devastated Delta areas.
     Besides the lack of communication infrastructure, the political obstacles piled up by the military government and the fuel shortage a further 'peculiarity' of Myanmar is the absence of any press people that normally document such aid activities.
     DHL's mandate in Myanmar under the UN aegis is to run for another three weeks, tasking DHL staff among other things to teach local personnel the basics of air freight and warehousing.
     "When we leave here, we will have trained the people on the spot so that they can organize incoming aid supplies smoothly without our direct assistance," Chris Weeks said in a voice filled with hope.
     Hope is something to keep alive when talking about Myanmar these days.
Heiner Siegmund