When the 12ft tidal wave whipped up by Cyclone Nargis swept in across the Irrawaddy delta on Saturday, the people had nowhere to run. Aerial views of the area have since shown ruined rice fields choked with their bodies. It is likely that the final death toll will exceed 50,000. This would make it the most deadly storm since the Bangladesh cyclone of 1991, which claimed 138,000 lives. (By comparison, Hurricane Katrina killed just over 1800.) Regardless of other pressing priorities, the international community must mobilise a massive aid effort to save the survivors. Having failed to deliver anything approaching early warning of this catastrophe, the Burmese government's response to it has been painfully inadequate. Generally speaking, democratically elected governments handle emergencies better than non-elected ones because the alternative is political suicide. Burma's generals are not answerable to anyone and their normal instinct would be to deny or understate the emergency. Such is the scale of this catastrophe that, in contrast to the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami, the junta admits it needs international help. The outside world must grab this opportunity with all possible speed, not only out of simple humanity but also because the silver lining could be ultimate regime change.

It is a measure of its ineptitude that initially Burma's government planned to go ahead with its planned constitutional referendum this weekend. This process was always a sham, designed inter alia to keep the principal opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, out of power. The junta showed its true colours last September with its brutal repression of monks protesting in favour of democratic change.

An effective international relief effort now could succeed where they failed. Today the first priority must be to prevent a second disaster, because many survivors will die soon without food, clean water and medical help. Recent experience has given international aid agencies much relevant experience, but the biggest challenge is simply to reach the affected area, with so many roads blocked or destroyed.

After decades of isolation and impoverishment, the Burmese people are poorly placed to spring back, especially when much of the rice crop has been destroyed. This could have a cruel knock-on effect on the world's poor, who have already seen rice prices triple in less than a year. With international help and a better government, Burma - once the world's largest rice exporter - could be part of the solution. Instead of pricing rice out of the reach of the poor by forming an Opec-style cartel, the world's rice producers, including Burma, need to share technology and boost production. Unlikely as it seems today, the fertile crescent of the Irrawaddy delta could once again help to feed the world.