HARLINGEN - Myanmar leaders' refusal to allow foreign aid after a cyclone ravaged their country did not stop two local doctors from getting in and doing what they could to help.

Dr. Matt Moslener, who is in his second year of the Valley Baptist Family Practice Residency Program, and private physician Dr. Edward Oorjitham traveled to Myanmar - formerly known as Burma - with Tulsa, Okla.-based medical residency program In His Image.

The group of doctors and nurses managed to separately ship medical supplies into Myanmar and personally enter the country on tourist visas, Moslener said.

Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar on May 2. Since then, the country's military government has either refused or restricted disaster relief supplies, foreign aid workers or medical personnel coming into the country.

An estimated 78,000 people are known dead and 56,000 people are missing since the cyclone struck, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The United Nations has estimated 2.4 million people have been affected.

In His Image workers managed to slip in to the country through remote areas, where rank-and-file soldiers allowed them to continue treating people, Moslener said - despite top generals' commands. In fact, the soldiers seemed appreciative foreigners were helping, he said.

The Myanmar population is facing rampant homelessness, infected injuries from cuts and bruises and water pollution that could soon lead to illness, according to Moslener, who returned last week.

Dr. Oorjitham traveled to his native Malaysia on the way back and has yet to return to the Valley.

Although there is plenty of food available in Myanmar right now, a rice shortage over the entire region is predicted because the storm ruined the rice crop. In fact, built on rice production, Myanmar's main economy is destroyed for the near future.

People who live in Myanmar's southern delta region, a remote area vital to Southeast Asia' rice supply, live mostly over the water in houses built on stilts and made of wood and bamboo. The area is rich in vegetables, fruits and seafood.

"They said it was the worst storm they had had in 100 years," Moslener said. "There was a second storm coming to the area, but it died down; it didn't do any damage. The first storm was similar to Hurricane Katrina. I believe it was of that size and energy."

The American doctors worked at a refugee camp set up at a four-room school that was housing about 1,000 people, mostly children.

"In that area, before we got there, there was actually a riot," Moslener said. "It was on the BBC news. So there were military people watching us while we were seeing patients."

Some of the storm refugees were suffering from pneumonia, tuberculosis, skin infections and bruises.

"Many people had been cut by corrugated sheet metal roofs. They were sifting through their things and trying to rebuild houses," he said. "There were a lot of people with foot and leg cuts that were about 10 days old - a lot of bacterial diarrhea, parasites."

The bodies of dead humans and animals are polluting water supplies, Moslener said.

Almost no doctors from Europe, Canada or the United States were allowed into Myanmar to help the storm victims, he said.

"We did meet doctors from Singapore and there were doctors from Thailand."

"There were virtually no western doctors that we knew of," due to the Myanmar government's refusal of that region's aid.