Gardner and her assessment team were able to visit five locations in the Irrawaddy delta. In one of them, 10,000 people are living without shelter as rain continued to tumble from the sky.

"The town of Labutta is unrecognizable. I have been here before and now with the extent of the damage and the crowds of displaced people, it's a different place," Gardner was quoted as saying in a statement by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

(Xinhua News Agency via agencies May 14, 2008)