Agencies report that the military junta's visa restrictions were hampering international relief efforts. Only a few U.N. aid workers had been let into the country, which the government has kept isolated for five decades.

A spokesman for the U.N. Children's Fund said its staff in Myanmar reported seeing many people huddled in rude shelters and children who had lost their parents. There's widespread devastation. Buildings and health centers are flattened and bloated dead animals are floating around, which is an alarm for spreading disease.

Myanmar's state media said Cyclone Nargis killed at least 22,980 people and left 42,119 missing. American diplomat Shari Villarosa, who heads the U.S. Embassy in Yangon, said the number of dead could eventually exceed 100,000 because safe food and water were scarce and unsanitary conditions widespread.

A few shops reopened in the Irrawaddy delta, but they were quickly overwhelmed by desperate people, said Paul Risley, a spokesman for the U.N. World Food Program in Bangkok, Thailand, quoting his agency's workers in the area. "Fistfights are breaking out," he said. A Yangon resident who returned to the city from the delta area said people were drinking coconut water because there was no safe drinking water. He said many people were on boats using blankets as sails.

U.N. officials estimated some 1 million people had been left homeless in Myanmar, which also is known as Burma. Some aid workers said heavily flooded areas were accessible only by boat, with helicopters unable to find dry spots for landing relief supplies. "Basically the entire lower delta region is under water," said Richard Horsey, the Thailand-based spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid. "Teams are talking about bodies floating around in the water," he said. This is "a major, major disaster we're dealing with."

International assistance began trickling in Wednesday with the first shipments of medicine, clothing and food. But the junta, which normally restricts access by foreign officials and groups, was slow to give permission for workers to enter. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the junta to speed the arrival of aid workers and relief supplies "in every way possible."

State television said Myanmar would accept aid from any country. It also said planes flew in Wednesday with tents from Japan, medicine and clothing from Bangladesh and India, packets of noodles from Thailand and dried bacon from China. The first U.N. flights, carrying 45 metric tons of high energy biscuits, were due to arrive early Thursday.

President Bush said the U.S. was ready to deliver aid and was prepared to use Navy ships and aircraft to help search for the dead and missing. But it wasn't known if the junta, which regularly accuses Washington of trying to subvert its rule, would accept an American military operation in its territory.

In Yangon, many angry residents complained that the military regime had given vague and incorrect information about the approaching storm and provided no instructions on how to cope when it struck. Officials in India said they had warned Myanmar about the cyclone two days before it roared into the low-lying Irrawaddy delta. B.P. Yadav, spokesman for the Indian Meteorological Department, said the agency spotted the developing storm on April 28 and gave regular updates to all countries in its path.

But residents of Yangon faced doubled prices for rice, charcoal, bottled water and cooking oil. At a suburban market, a fishmonger shouted to shoppers: "Come, come the fish is very fresh." But an angry woman snapped: "Even if the fish is fresh, I have no water to cook it!" Most residents of Yangon rely on wells with electric pumps for water, and power had been restored to only a small part of the city.

(Inputs from Associated Press writers Carley Petesch and Lily Hindy in New York)