Cyclone victims are 'without aid'

By Subir Bhaumik
BBC News, Calcutta

'Water was gushing in'

Tens of thousands of people in Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal are still struggling with the aftermath of Cyclone Aila.

Many are still without enough food, water and medicines.

More than 200 bodies have been recovered - mainly from the Sundarbans delta area.

Nearly half a million people are homeless and troops and border guards are helping the civil administrations in relief operations.

Relief officials say many more corpses are still to be recovered from the slowly receding flood waters.

Thousands of villagers rendered homeless by the cyclone in West Bengal say that the government is yet to provide them with material for temporary shelters - so they are forced to live in makeshift camps where space and sanitation are inadequate.

Doctors say they fear the outbreak of an epidemic of water-borne diseases like diarrhoea and gastroenteritis in the cyclone-hit areas.

But the impact of the storm is worst in the Sundarbans delta, famous for its mangrove forests and Royal Bengal tigers.

Officials involved in the relief operation say dead bodies are still floating all around the delta and many people are stranded in the remote region.

They say that displaced people are still not getting enough food and water, despite sporadic air drops of supplies.

The damage to the mangrove forest has been considerable and environmentalists fear that many tigers may have been washed away by tidal surges.