Fourteen years in the making, the Constitution is formulated to keep power in the hands of military officers, even if they change to civilian clothes. It would guarantee the military 25 percent of the seats in Parliament and control of crucial cabinet posts, along with the right to suspend democratic freedoms at any time.

Image Bodies of a family killed in Tropical Cyclone Nargis were laid out in Bogale village, in a photograph taken early this week. Credit... European Pressphoto Agency

But while the state-run newspaper urged people on Friday to approve the Constitution, little help was reaching them. To date, Myanmar has allowed 11 airborne deliveries of aid, which experts say is a fraction of the relief needed if the scale of the disaster is even close to what the Burmese government has claimed. Much of that has come from the United Nations World Food Program, which said Friday that the aid it had delivered  and intended to distribute to hard-hit regions along the coast  had been seized.

“All the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated,” said Paul Risley, a spokesman for the United Nations World Food Program in Bangkok.

After initially saying it would halt deliveries, the agency said later Friday that flights would continue Saturday while the issue is worked out. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the Myanmar authorities to let aid into the country “without hindrance” and said the effect of further delay could be “truly catastrophic.”

His spokeswoman, Marie Okabe, said Mr. Ban had been trying for two days without success to get in touch by telephone with Than Shwe, the junta’s senior general. “We have been told that the phone lines are down,” she said.

Myanmar’s military junta said in a statement on Friday that it was willing to receive disaster relief from the outside world but would distribute supplies itself rather than allowing in relief workers. Aid agencies want to coordinate and control their own aid.