For two days, a World Food Programme aircraft – fully loaded with 20 tonnes of ready-to-eat high-energy biscuits, six portable warehouses and eight large emergency medical kits – sat on the tarmac in Dubai, waiting for clearance from Burma’s military authorities to deliver its life-saving goods to survivors of the devastating cyclone.

In Rangoon, officials repeatedly told the WFP that the airlift had been given the green light. But the message was slower to reach Burma’s civil aviation authorities, who gave the anxious pilot no clearance to land, delaying take-off.