GONAIVES, Haiti (AFP) - Tension mounted in northern Haiti where floods killed more than 1,100 people and residents clamored for food while relief workers battled mud and high water to deliver aid.
As international relief agencies trucked in emergency supplies across flooded roads, rescue teams continued to search through the mud and rubble for more victims of the floods that killed at least 1,147, left 1,250 missing and feared dead, and injured more than 900.
Authorities said the death toll could rise above 2,000.
More than 1,000 of the confirmed fatalities were in the northern city of Gonaives, where the toll "could rise dramatically in the coming days as there are still two areas of town which are under water and inaccessible," the United Nations said in a statement.
A quarter of a million people were affected in some way or other by the September 19 floods triggered by Tropical Storm Jeanne, many losing their homes and most left without food or clean water.
By early Thursday, aid agencies had managed to truck in 70 tonnes of food. Transport across flooded areas and distribution to such a massive number of people posed a massive logistical nightmare. And the supplies were short of what is needed.
"Seventy tonnes is not enough for the huge number of victims," said Hans Havic of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
"People are in a desperate situation, they have no food, no water."
He said this fueled concern that famished residents may resort to looting, causing food convoys to take extra precautions to ensure they are not plundered.
Argentine soldiers Thursday fired in the air to restore order as residents pushed and shoved as relief workers handed out bread, rice and beans.
Local authorities also said a group of men attacked four policeman protecting a relief truck and stole some of the water it carried.
"People are angry," said Sophie Paris, a spokeswoman for the peacekeeping force after assessing the situation in En Bas Point, a Gonaives slum.
UN peacekeepers accompany convoys along the 160-kilometer (100-mile) road from Port-au-Prince, whose advanced state of disrepair was further worsened by the killer floods.
The 20 helicopters of the UN force in Haiti also have been delivering supplies and relief teams, but planes were unable to land at the flooded airport.
Convoys transporting about 35 tonnes of food every day will continue in the next days and probably weeks, said Guy Gauvreau, who heads the World Food Program mission in Haiti.
As of Friday the WFP trucks also were to carry supplies from other donors, including generators from Japan and tents sent by France, said Gauvreau.
Emergency teams were also helping collect human remains rotting in the sweltering heat. The cadavers were being buried in mass graves amid growing fears of epidemic in the city that lost most of its already basic sanitation systems.
Because morgues are full and in some cases difficult to reach, "people are starting to dump bodies in front of the UN compound," said Toussaint Kongo-Doudou, the main spokesman for the peacekeeping force.
In some neighborhoods, residents torched uncollected bodies lying in the streets. Paris said she counted 16 burned bodies in En Bas Point alone.
Officials worried about the risk of contamination.
"The health situation is under control, but the danger of epidemics cannot be ruled out," the UN statement said.
The city's main hospital was demolished by the floods which are believed to have killed hundreds of patients,
The disaster further exacerbated misery in a country that ranks among the world's poorest and already lost 1,200 people to earlier floods in May, after being rocked by deadly civil strife earlier in the year.