WHO warns of diseases in Yemen as floods abate

Sana'a: Flood-battered southern Yemen is at high risk for waterborne diseases and malaria, warned the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Wednesday, as the Yemeni government raised the death toll to 103.

WHO, however, has put the number at 180. The discrepancy in casualty reports is because scores are believed to be missing or buried under debris of thousands of demolished mud brick houses.

WHO said in its statement that it has provided $100,000 to the affected population, as well as medicine for some 50,000 patients in the hard-hit southern provinces of Hadramut and Al Mahra.

Damage has been extensive with some of the southern cities still isolated after bridges and roads have been destroyed by floods caused by a tropical storm that smashed into the impoverished country last Thursday.

More than 20,000 people have been displaced and the government-led rescue operations have been slow due to a lack of heavy-machinery needed to clear the way to reach stricken areas.

Deputy Yemeni Prime Minister Sadek Ameen Abu Ras said that helicopters are being used but they can carry only a limited amount of aid at any one time.

"There are huge difficulties facing rescue workers since the extent of the stricken area has reached 150,000 square kilometers," or a third of the country, Abu Ras told reporters.

"Floods reached 18 metres depth in some areas; bodies were swept away and were found far away in remote valleys," he added.

Mohammad Basalam, a member of the government rescue committee, said that the smell of the corpses filled the air and that "the biggest problem right now is a health and an environmental one."

Neighbouring Arab countries have sent planes with relief to Yemen over the past few days.