Cyclone Nargis visas for entry into the country. According to "Thai Rath" Newspaper of Thailand on 8 May 2008, in the afternoon (Bangkok time) of 7 May 2008, the Burmese junta permitted Italian flights containing relief supplies from the United Nations, and twenty-five tonnes of consumable goods, to land in Myanmar. However, many nations and organisations hoped to deliver assistance and relief to Myanmar without delay; most of their officials, supplies and stores were waiting in Thailand and at the Yangon airport, as the Burmese junta declined to issue visas for many of those individuals. These political tensions raised the concern that
Cyclone Nargis and there have been allegations that government officials stopped updating the death toll after 138,000 to minimize political fallout. The feared 'second wave' of fatalities from disease and lack of relief efforts never materialized. Damage was estimated at over K62,988,000,000 (US$10 billion), which made it the most damaging cyclone ever recorded in this basin. The first named storm of the 2008 North Indian Ocean cyclone season, Nargis developed on 27 April in the central area of Bay of Bengal. Initially, the storm tracked slowly northwestward, and encountering favourable conditions, it quickly strengthened. Dry air weakened the cyclone on 29 April,