Hungry mobs search the empty lorries, but there simply isn't enough to go round. The poisonous mixture of rotting bodies and stagnant water has raised fears of cholera and typhoid, but medical supplies too are in pitifully short supply. The civilian authorities have been criticized for their slow reaction. Despite the extent of this disaster, it's taken nearly a week for the rescue effort to get into full swing. The wreckage stretches for mile after mile with dead animals littering the fields, sometimes alongside the bodies of their owners.
Survivors huddle together on every patch of raised ground.
Our pilot, like the army flight crews, was extremely reluctant to land, fearing that the helicopter would be mobbed by starving people. In one small town, the people begged us to come down. But at the last moment, the pilot decided that the crowd was simply too large. Finally we landed on the outskirts of a small village and people rushed towards us. Anxious, almost hysterical, they told us that all their food supplies were destroyed by the flooding.