Myanmar's ruling junta upped the official death toll from Cyclone Nargis to 28,458 Sunday, but horror stories filtering into the former capital Yangon with the homeless suggest a much higher number, dpa reported.
Military-controlled MRTV put the death toll at 28,458 with 33,416 missing in a broadcast Sunday night.
But anecdotal reports from survivors of the cyclone, which hit Myanmar's cental coastal region on May 2 to 3, suggest the United Nations estimate of 100,000 dead comes closer to the truth.
"Most of the people from my village are dead," said Soe Thu, 23, from the salt-making village of Ngaputaw, in the Irrawaddy delta.
Soe Thu, who recently arrived in Yangon with his father and two brothers, said he had lost his mother to Cyclone Nargis which hit his town on May 2.
His family was among the lucky.
"There were about 12,000 houses in Ngaputaw, with a population about 50,000, most of us working at the Hnget Kyun salt production area," Soe Thu told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
"Altogether over 40,000 died. Most of dead were women and children working in the salt fields," he said.
Like many other survivors in the Irrawaddy delta, Soe Thu claimed to have known about the approaching cyclone but claimed the government warning said it was packing winds of only 40 to 50 miles per hour.
He and the survivors fled to Yangon on Thursday after failing to receive sufficient assistance from the government.
"They promise a lot but they give little," he said.
The Myanmar junta has come under a barrage of international criticism for failing to facilitate a global disaster relief programme for the country by speeding up aid deliveries and granting visas to foreign aid experts.
With the real casualty figures of the calamity still unknown, disaster experts have warned that it could increase dramatically in the coming weeks if the aid programme is not accelerated.
"With the likelihood of 100,000 or more killed in the cyclone there are all the factors for a public health catastrophe which could multiply that death toll by up to 15 times in the coming period," said Oxfam's Regional Director for East Asia, Sarah Ireland.