BANGKOK  While the death toll in Myanmar continues to climb, international aid agencies are warning of a new kind of threat to the most vulnerable survivors, children.

The young suffered disproportionately from the very beginning: relief groups estimate that they made up about one-third of those killed by the devastating cyclone. Now, they say, children make up about a third of survivors. Many are orphans or lost, and surrounded by strangers in crowded refugee camps; some are too young to even know their parents’ names. .

Since many of Myanmar’s children are malnourished, their immune systems are weaker, said Kate Conradt, a spokeswoman for Save the Children in Bangkok. So, with huge rainstorms drenching the often-homeless survivors, food and clean water scarce, and aid slow to arrive, children are likely to lead the next expected wave of death from water-born diseases.

And as time passes, the relief groups say, the children are increasingly at risk of forced recruitment into sexual labor and the armed forces