New Orleans relief work could take years

Hurricane Katrina may have passed, but for many in New Orleans, the situation is far from over.

US authorities are struggling to rescue people trapped on rooftops and it is feared that hundreds may have lost their lives in the catastrophe.

Floodwaters are reported to be receding two days after the hurricane, but most of the historic city remains under water today, with electricity and sanitation non-existent.

President Bush has asked for "patience" as one of the largest relief operations ever mounted on US soil gets underway.

Helicopters and buses are being used to ferry some of the most vulnerable individuals, along with refugees rescued from the devastation, to Louisiana and Texas.

Yesterday, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered the complete evacuation of the swamped city. Tens of thousands of residents are desperate to leave the city as supplies are dwindling.

The city's Superdome stadium, which was turned into a temporary refuge from the hurricane, is currently housing an estimated 20,000 people in appalling conditions. Emergency relief workers have organised their transfer mainly by buses to Houston's Astrodome stadium which is 350 miles away. However, the airborne operation had to be suspended today when a National Guard was shot and slightly wounded by a gunman apparently in the crowd.

Elsewhere in the city army engineers began work to plug the vast holes punched in the city's broken down levees with 7-ton sandbags carried by heavy-lift helicopters.

President Bush who flew over the affected region yesterday, commented that the recovery work could take years to complete. The President said it was "one of the worst natural disasters" ever seen in the US.

Another 10,000 troops are being dispatched to the area, to bring the complement of troops in the worst affected states Louisiana, Mississippi including parts of Alabama and Florida to around 21,000.

But relief work is being hampered by heavily armed gangs who are reported to be systematically looting for food and supplies in the region and troops are being used to help local law enforcement agencies in their attempt to prevent further looting.

However, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was at odds with the President who said there should be no tolerance of looting - the Mayor said that some looting had started as people needed food.

The federal government has declared a public health emergency along, not only the Louisiana-Mississippi seaboard, but the whole Gulf coast in an effort to get urgently needed food and water supplies into the area.

Democrats have already condemned the Bush administration for underestimating the hurricane and for a slow response to the crisis.

The New York Times in its editorial condemned George W. Bush for one of his worst ever speeches. The paper accused Mr Bush of delivering only a "send cash" speech and said that complacency on environmental issues would no longer suffice.

(SP/KMcA)