Bangkok  - Chances are "good" that a storm in the Indian Ocean could be upgraded to a cyclone as it heads toward landfall in Myanmar, which is already reeling from Cyclone Nargis, the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre said Wednesday.

"The potential for the development of a significant tropical cyclone within the next 24 hours is upgraded to good," the centre said late Tuesday in a forecast issued from its headquarters in Hawaii.

The storm was situated about 30 nautical miles (56 kilometres) south-west of Yangon at the time the alert was issued.

Yangon and the southern part of Myanmar's Irrawaddy Delta suffered the brunt of Cyclone Nargis, which hit the coastline packing 200 kilometre-per-hour winds May 2-3.

The United Nations estimated that Nargis killed about 100,000 people and has left 1.9 million people in need of food, water, shelter and medicines.

Hundreds of thousands of people living in the Irrawaddy Delta and the outskirts of Yangon have gone without relief supplies for the past 12 days because of a combination of poor infrastructure impeding deliveries and a reluctance by Myanmar's ruling junta to facilitate the rapid distribution of aid and allow an influx of professional relief workers who could speed up the process.

Now, many of Nargis' victims - thousands of them without basic shelter - are in for more rains, if not another cyclone.

"I understand that there are terrible rains on the way and the possibility of a cyclone," confirmed Amanda Pitt, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which is heading the emergency relief effort in Myanmar out of Bangkok. (dpa)