 Aid is now reaching areas that were cut off |
Rescue and relief teams are thought to have reached much of remote Bangladesh devastated by a powerful cyclone. Cyclone Sidr has killed thousands, with authorities confirming at least 2,300 deaths but fears that the final toll could be significantly higher.
An estimated one million families are thought to have been affected.
Aid pledges have begun pouring in to help victims of the storm, which the government in Dhaka has described as a "national calamity".
Cyclone Sidr, which struck late on Thursday, brought winds of up to 240km/h (150mph) and a tidal surge of several metres.
It destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of homes, brought down power lines and wiped out vital crops.
Tens of thousands of survivors are now struggling for basic necessities like tents, rice and drinking water.
Bangladesh's Red Crescent society says up to 10,000 may have died.
Among major donors is the UK, which is sending $5m for relief efforts in addition to pledges from other nations and the European Union.
Pope's call
A spokesman for the UN World Food Programme in Bangladesh, which is overseeing the aid operation, said agencies had reacted "quickly and swiftly".
"The relief effort right now is in the acute stage, the beginning stages," Douglas Broderick told the BBC, adding that more than one million people had been fed so far.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed "deepest sympathies to the people of Bangladesh".
Announcing $2m in aid, she said the US would call in "a multitude of US government disaster relief agencies and departments" to help.
 |  I've been here waiting for hours for something to eat... what I've got so far are a few biscuits. Not enough  |
The EU, along with the governments of the UK, Germany, France and others have also announced aid pledges.
Pope Benedict XVI in his Sunday blessing at the Vatican called for "every possible effort to help our brothers who have been so sorely tested".
International aid staff are working alongside troops to bring supplies to remote coastal areas that were cut off.
Starting again
The BBC's Mark Dummett is in the worst-affected area and says relief teams have now reached most of the remote communities in southern Bangladesh.
Survivor Abdul Jalil told him: "We've lost everything now and I don't know what to do... I need some money to start my business again because I don't have a single penny with me now."
In Barguna, farmer Asad Ali told Associated Press news agency that mobs had swarmed around helicopters that were dropping food packages.
| Path of Cyclone Sidr across Bay of Bengal and Bangladesh 
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"I've been here waiting for hours for something to eat... what I've got so far are a few biscuits. Not enough."
Many survivors are returning to find flattened homes and crops.
However, the government said it was confident it was up to the relief task.
District official Shahidul Islam said: "We have enough food and water. We are going to overcome the problem."
Although the official death toll is 2,300, rescuers fear it could rise significantly.
Mohammad Abdur Rab, chairman of the Bangladeshi Red Crescent Society, said: "It may cross 5,000, but it will remain below 10,000."
Washed away
A government early-warning system is being credited with saving many lives, but the damage to property and crops has been massive.
Officials say that in many areas 95% of rice which was awaiting harvest has been destroyed, and shrimp farms and other crops were simply washed away.
Cyclone Sidr comes just a few months after floods devastated the north of the country.
Southern Bangladesh is hit every year by cyclones and floods, but Cyclone Sidr is the most destructive storm to hit the country in more than a decade.
Another storm in 1991 left some 143,000 dead. read more please
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