US Navy Prepares to Aid Bangladesh

A cyclone survivor looks on at Padma island in Barishal, 176 kilometers, (110 miles) south of Bangladesh's capital Dhaka, Thursday, Nov. 22, 2007. The Bangladesh government pledged Thursday to feed more than two million people left destitute by Cyclone Sidr amid warnings the country faces acute food shortages after the storm ravaged crops. The Nov. 15 storm killed more than 3,100 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless. (AP Photo/Pavel Rahman) (Pavel Rahman - AP)

"All the ponds and reservoirs were contaminated when the storm surge rolled over the area," said Selim Mollah, a villager in a battered district near the Sunderbans mangrove forest.

"I have lost eight members of my family," she said. "We are not getting any drinking water anywhere."

The United Nations allocated another $14.7 million in emergency response fund, much of which will go toward providing fresh water, a U.N. news release said Saturday.

Bangladesh had already received pledges of international aid of $450 million, including $250 million from the World Bank, Food and Disaster Management secretary Mohammad Ayub Mia said Thursday after a meeting with donors.

The government has also pledged to feed more than two million people left destitute by the storm, which killed more than 3,000.

But since the Nov. 15 storm hit southwestern Bangladesh, officials and relief agencies have struggled to get desperately needed rice, drinking water and tents to remote villages cut off when rain and winds washed out roads.

The government has promised to distribute 33 pounds of rice per month to each of the estimated 2.5 million people in need, many of them in crowded relief camps, starting Dec. 1, said Tapan Chowdhoury, the government's adviser on food and disaster management. The program will last at least four months, he said.

Kelly Stevenson, the Bangladesh director of Save the Children, said the charity estimates that 50 to 90 percent of the region's rice crop has been destroyed, leaving up to 3 million people at risk of food shortages over the next six months.

But in the short term, aid workers were struggling to get supplies to the devastated coastal region, where shortages have led to fistfights among survivors.

"Thousands of families are facing the real possibility of a second wave of death that can result from lack of clean water, food, shelter and medical supplies," said Stevenson.

The official death toll stood at 3,199, said Lt. Col. Main Ullah Chowdhury, spokesman for the army. The Disaster Management Ministry said 1,724 people were missing and 28,188 people had been injured. It said the cyclone destroyed 458,804 houses and partially damaged another 665,529.

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Associated Press writers Parveen Ahmed in Dhaka and Tofayel Ahmed in Cox's Bazar contributed to this report.