GONAIVES, Haiti, (AFP) - As floodwaters receded, residents are clearing out tonnes of mud in the northern Haitian city of Gonaives, where floods killed more than 1,000 and left most others dependent on emergency aid.
While rescuers in northern Haiti found more bodies, authorities said the official death toll had risen to 1,180, with another 1,200 missing, most of them feared dead.
Thousands of homes were destroyed and about a quarter of a million people are estimated to have been affected by the September 18 flooding spawned by Jeanne, which was then a tropical storm but has now strengthened into a hurricane that threatens Florida.
Relief workers who have been battling to get badly needed food, clean water and other emergency supplies to the flood-stricken area heaved a sigh of relief as waters receded in all but a few small areas of town.
This enabled residents to get into their homes to shovel out tonnes of mud, while authorities used the little equipment they had to start clearing roads.
Much of the city was covered in mud and rubble, with animal carcasses protruding from some areas, while authorities feared that human bodies could still be buried.
"The stench makes it clear there are decomposing cadavers," said Wolde Saugeron of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
In recent days, local and International Red Cross workers helped retrieve bodies lying in the open, packing them in bodybags.
The receding waters have made it easier for emergency crews to distribute bread, rice, beans and other emergency supplies trucked in from Port-au-Prince, 160 kilometers (100 miles) away over a partly-flooded road that was already in appalling shape before the floods.
But it also means that people who had previously been cut off were now rushing to distribution centers hoping to get their first meal in days.
Food distribution was chaotic at best as anxious crowds pushed and shoved, prompting peacekeeping forces to fire in the air in a bid to restore some form of order.
"People are famished, they're desperate to get food," said Toussaint Kongo-Doudou, the spokesman for the UN peacekeeping forces.
About 140 Uruguayan UN troops posted in southern Haiti were sent in Friday to help out their Argentine collegues in Gonaives, amid mounting concerns for the security of food convoys.
A total of 120 tonnes of food have been distributed by the World Food Program and the CARE relief organization since the first trucks arrived on Friday, said Kongo-Doudou.
At this stage, relief workers are struggling to meet the most immediate needs of residents left destitute by the floods, but say northern Haiti will rely on emergency aid for months.
As international aid poured into Haiti, a new, urgent appeal for more donations will be made early next week, said Kongo-Doudou.
"It's a brutal situation and another spoke in Haiti's cycle of misery," said Abby Maxman, the director of the CARE relief group in Haiti.
"Eighty percent of people in northwestern Haiti will require emergency aid over the coming months. The people have lost their homes, their livestock, crops, clothes -- everything."
Officials worried about health conditions in the area, where the floods destroyed water purification systems, carried away latrines and caused open sewers to spew into the streets.
They are notably concerned about the risk of malaria, dysentery and typhoid fever. Children are the most vulnerable to malnutrition, dehydration and diarrhea.
In many cases, residents have been drinking water they collected from flooded streets, where they also wash their clothes.
Further aggravating the situation, the main hospital in Gonaives was shattered by the floods, which are believed to have killed several hundred bedridden patients.
One of the world's poorest countries, Haiti had already been ravaged by killer floods in May and deadly civil strife earlier in the year.