(BANGKOK) - The European Union's humanitarian aid chief on Friday said the international community should press Myanmar to speed up the relief and recovery operation after the country's devastating cyclone.

As the official toll of dead and missing topped 133,000 in the worst disaster in the country's history, Louis Michel said he "expected a result" after two days of talks with the secretive regime.

"Every possible pressure -- all rhetorical and diplomatic means -- must be used to get them to understand that they must help us help them," Michel said in an interview with AFP TV in neighbouring Thailand following his trip.

The junta has welcomed hundreds of tonnes of international aid in the aftermath of the disaster but has repeatedly rejected foreign experts to oversee and facilitate the massive relief effort.

Michel announced that more than 100 doctors would go Saturday into Myanmar, where an estimated 2.5 million people are in dire need of emergency aid -- food, water, shelter or medical care.

But the ruling generals have instituted tight controls on the entry and internal movement of aid workers, including the experts that relief groups say are needed to prevent a second wave of deaths in the catastrophe.

"Time is life," he said.

Michel said he had put forward a series of requests, including opening up a regional airport closer to the southern disaster zone for aid flights, which are now only going to the main city of Yangon.

"They are tempted to react positively to our requests," he said.

"But I feel also reluctance because the relationship between authorities and the international community (is) of course not very positive. So they are hesitant."

Much criticised for a slow-moving "road map" to restore democracy, as well as for keeping opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest, Myanmar is under strict international sanctions.

The military, which has run the country since 1962, is believed to be wary of any outside influence which could weaken its virtually total control on every aspect of life in the nation, formerly known as Burma.

State television put the latest toll from Cyclone Nargis at 77,738 dead and 55,917 missing -- with 19,359 people injured.

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