Flags across Burma flew at half mast on Tuesday, the start of three days of mourning for 134,000 people dead and missing from cyclone Nargis, as diplomats pressed the military government to speed up aid to survivors.

The ruling army declared the official mourning period after a visit by 75-year-old junta supremo Than Shwe to the stricken Irrawaddy Delta on Monday, his first to the disaster zone since the cyclone struck two weeks ago.

Diplomats, aid workers and some citizens took the visit as a possible sign the leadership had woken up to the scale of the catastrophe and would allow in more international aid soon.

“The old man must have been shocked to see the real situation with his own eyes,” one retired government official said.

The bespectacled Senior General was shown on state-run TV touring storm-hit parts of Yangon and the delta, where aid experts say massive foreign assistance is needed to prevent more people dying from hunger and disease.

The government’s toll of 77,738 killed and 55,917 missing could rise as UN humanitarian officials say 2.4m have been left destitute. Many are holed up in temporary shelters in monasteries and schools.

“There are obviously some in the military who see how enormous this is, and how enormously wrong it could go without further support,” one Yangon-based diplomat said.

In Yangon, the former capital, flags flew at half mast from government and other buildings in torrential rain.

The onset of the monsoon season is making life even more miserable for those clinging to survival in the southwestern delta after Nargis’ winds and sea surge ravaged the area.

“Our rice could recover if the sun ever got the chance to shine,” one weather-beaten farmer said, trying to dry his rice beside the road. “But it will never be good quality again.”

The diplomatic effort to deliver more aid and expertise to the strapped government has picked up a little pace, but the World Bank said it could not provide financial aid to Burma because it has made no debt repayments since 1998.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) said it would co-ordinate international relief and announced it would hold a joint pledging conference with the United Nations in Yangon on Sunday.

John Holmes, the UN’s top humanitarian aid official, was allowed into disaster-hit towns on Monday, and his boss, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, is due in Yangon on Thursday.

Although there is little detail of how Asean will carry out what it called an aid “mechanism”, Western governments and relief groups know it is the only option that might be palatable to the generals,

Historically the military has been suspicious of foreign interference, especially from Western countries. That distrust has deepened since the wave of international outrage and heightened sanctions following last year’s crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.

“We have no choice other than to encourage the regime to open up because there’s no way to force this on them,” one humanitarian official told Reuters.

“It’s a face-saving way to get them to admit outside help, but we’ll have to wait and see if it works or if it’s fudge.”

Besides permission for Asean medical teams to fly in, a World Food Programme source said it was getting “positive signs” from the junta to fly supplies into the delta with civilian helicopters.

It has rejected offers of military helicopters, but accepted foreign aid flights, including some by the US military, into Yangon. It has also allowed UN agencies such as the World Food Programme to distribute supplies.

The United States and France also have naval vessels waiting in waters near Burma ready to deliver supplies.

Mark Malloch-Brown, Britain’s Asia minister, said after returning from Burma that the generals and aid groups had widely differing views on the immediate priorities.

“Getting a needs assessment done in time for the donors’ meeting is critical to get everyone on the same page,” he told reporters in London.

In one town in the upper delta, a steady stream of refugees arrived after travelling for days from Pyinsalu, one of the worst-hit districts.

“I didn’t have any kids, but I lost all my relatives. It’s only my wife and me now,” said one man, his clothes soaked by rain and wearing no shoes.

In the last 50 years, only two Asian cyclones have exceeded the human toll of Nargis – a 1970 storm that killed 500,000 people in neighbouring Bangladesh and another that killed 143,000 people in 1991, also in Bangladesh.