UNITED NATIONS, May 27 (Xinhua) -- The top humanitarian official for the United Nations said Sunday's international pledging conference in Yangon was a success and that the world body has raised 60 percent of the funding it has appealed for helping Myanmar cope with the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis.

    "There was a strong sense of unity and purpose and a clear determination to scale up the relief effort -- to reach all of those in need," Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes told reporters here on Tuesday.

    The world body estimates that aid has reached about one million people, not including the Myanmar government's own emergency response. As many as 2.4 million people are thought to have been severely affected by the cyclone, which struck the Southeast Asian country on May 5.

    Holmes said there had been some progress on access for international aid workers and better logistical arrangements were now in place, particularly after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met last Friday with Myanmar's Senior-General Than Shwe.

    "A lot of people have received either nothing or not enough. That's why we need to step up the aid effort," said Holmes, who also serves as UN Emergency Relief Coordinator.

    In Geneva, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that between 10 and 15 international flights are coming in every day to Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, and that air-bridge flights from the logistics hub at Bangkok's Don Muang Airport to Yangon are now fully operational.

    In total, 169 international relief flights have arrived so far in Myanmar.

    Elizabeth Byrs, the OCHA spokeswoman, expressed the hope that the UN World Food Program (WFP) would be able to start operating 10 helicopters in Myanmar as soon as possible, after the government gave the go-ahead to their deployment.

    So far, WFP and its partners have delivered over 3,000 tons of food aid reaching some 460,000 people, Byrs said.