(AFP) – Nov 23, 2007

DHAKA (AFP) — The US navy has begun airlifting urgently needed supplies of clean drinking water to thousands of survivors of Bangladesh's devastating Cyclone Sidr, an official said Saturday.

More than 3,400 people died and hundreds of thousands left homeless after the powerful storm on November 15 demolished entire villages.

Relief efforts have been dogged by problems, leaving villagers desperately short of water, food and medicine more than a week after the killer cyclone struck.

One person died on Saturday and over 100 were hurt, 10 seriously, when a bridge collapsed under the weight of 1,000 cyclone victims who were queuing for food from a cement company, police and officials said.

"The company which was to distribute food to the area did not control the crowd as they did not take any protection from police or local authorities, resulting in the accident," said local police chief Abu Saleh Mohammad Raihan.

Navy personnel from the USS Kearsarge, anchored close to the southern Bangladesh coast, were carrying out medical evacuations and transporting water to some of the worst-affected coastal areas, a US embassy spokesman said.

Two more ships -- the USS Essex and the USS Tarawa, like the Kearsarge carrying helicopters, medical teams and with onboard surgical facilities -- were also due to arrive, said US navy spokesman lieutenant commander John Daniels in Washington.

Offers of international help continued to flood in with 470 million dollars' worth of aid pledged by donor countries and agencies, said disaster management ministry official Ayub Mia.

The shortage of clean water was one of the main problems confronting survivors, who also faced the risk of outbreaks of water-borne disease, relief workers said.

Difficulties were greatest in hardest-hit coastal areas where drinking water was usually supplied by surface water that had been contaminated by saline water.

In Amtola, a coastal village of 3,000 people where 20 were killed by a six-metre (20-foot) wave, residents told AFP they were suffering intolerable conditions.

Monwara Begum said the cyclone had left her destitute.

"I told relief workers we are starving. We don't even have clean water and are drinking pond water which has had dead animals in it," she said.

"How am I supposed to survive? I am sick, I am injured, I can't stop shaking."

Others said they did not know how much longer they could wait for aid to arrive.

"The only thing we have been given in all the days since the cyclone is two kilograms of rice and 60 taka (less than a dollar) from the local government officials, and we have no food and no drinking water," said Mohammad Dulal, 30, from Garjonbunia village close to the coast.

Dulal's village was obliterated by the tidal wave, which swept away at least 100 of his neighbours.

He told AFP he, his wife and young son were camping on a roadside in a shack made from tree branches and scavenged plastic.

Meanwhile, relief materials donated by the Indian government had started to arrive in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka.

Two Indian aircraft carrying packets of ready meals, water filters, tents and medicines had been delivered with another due on Saturday, the state-run BSS news agency said.

A 75-member Pakistan army medical team also arrived along with 15 tonnes of medicine and equipment to set up a field hospital, said armed forces spokesman major Nawrose, who uses one name.

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