Dacca: Did 200,000 people die in the East Pakistan cyclone disaster, as President Yahya Khan says? Or a million, as most people on the spot estimate? Or two million? It is a guessing game that serves no useful purpose.

The real question now is whether the relief operations, and the longer-range work to make the flood-ravaged delta viable again, will be able to save the people who were not killed two weeks ago.

The survivors may total two million-the number depends on the death toll. Their outlook is bleak.

Yesterday afternoon, I flew by helicopter over Hatiya, one of the larger islands rolled flat by the tidal wave on November 12. Cattle carcasses and human corpses still litter the desolate landscape. Here and there, groups of survivors huddle together under tall palm trees. Some of them just have climbed those trees to escape the onrushing wall of water. That is why more able-bodied men survived than women and children.

My helicopter, a French Alouette, was from Saudi Arabia, one of eight nations including Britain that have contributed air-lift for the first phase of the relief operations - helping the survivors to stay alive. The relief effort has become the major airlift. Planes from the outside world fly most hourly
to Dacca, the East Pakistan capital, with food, clothes, water purifying equipment and other essential supplies. Pakistani soldiers guard the supplies against pilfers. From the airport they are moved, usually by helicopter, to a forward supply depot and thence to the cyclone victims along the coast and on the flood swept islands.

A typical day’s drop by British commando helicopters operating from Patuakhali supply base consists of more than 4,500 tons of rice, oil, flour, biscuits, sugar, potatoes, milk-powder and clothes. The Red Cross and other agencies seem satisfied that relief supplies are reaching the victims for whom they are intended, if somewhat belatedly. There is no sign of an early let-up in the relief operations, nor does there seem to be any shortage of supplies.

President Yahya, who admits “mistakes and delays” by his Government, describes the international response as magnificent. He has kept silent about how long foreign relief crews will be needed. But food relief will be needed for at least a year, because the invading sea has ruined the delta farmlands. Pakistan has put a £75m emergency development proposal to the World Bank. Drawn up hurriedly by a Canadian firm that advises the East Pakistan authorities, it aims at restoring the cyclone-hit area to “normal” in two years. It is obvious that much more will be needed. For one thing, the devastated areas, 30 miles across, have been left with hardly any homes standing. Secondly, up to three years will be needed to restore the ruined land to full production. Vast irrigation works are needed. Fresh water supplies have to be restored. And there is the immense task of building new embankments to protect agricultural land from the sea. The old embankments, made of earth and 16 feet high, were swept away. The Dutch Government is sending a team to study a new, cheap method of dying.

The disaster has become a sharp political issue. President Yahya has felt it necessary to deny allegations that the central government - based in West Pakistan, separated from the east by India - was callous or negligent in dealing with the disaster. The East Pakistanis say that food, helicopters and money arrived in Dacca from abroad before they were sent from West Pakistan, and that it took 10 days for President Yahya to allocate £4.4 m for relief. In addition, the president has been accused of letting British marines, rather than Pakistani soldiers, bury the dead.

Political leaders in East Pakistan, which has the majority of Pakistan’s 110 million people but is far poorer than the western wing, are using these and other accusations in a campaign to embarrass the west-wing parties in the election to be held eight days from now for a constitutional assembly. The man tipped to emerge with 80 per cent of the East Pakistan vote is Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, president of the All-Pakistan Awami League.

He accuses the central government of criminal neglect and discrimination against the cyclone victims. The Sheikh is a Bengali nationalist who wants
autonomy for the predominantly Bengali population of East Pakistan. The central government’s failures are bound to help the Sheikh and could make him Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Street posters appeared in Dacca for the first time yesterday saying, “All elected members must pledge to rule from Dacca and not Rawalpindi” (the western capital). President Yahya, seemingly anticipated a showdown with the opposition, has warned that the present martial law would continue if the newly elected assemblies draw up a constitution that conflicts with the basic principles he has set down - one of which is that East Pakistan should have only limited autonomy.