The death toll has now reached about 11,000, with another 13,000 missing and feared dead, after the storm wreaked havoc across much of Central America.

Intl Development Secretary Clare Short: We are working to get the right supplies to the right people

In Honduras, which bore the brunt of the damage, there are already severe shortages of food and medicines.

Local authorities and aid organisations are also having problems finding ways of disposing bodies to prevent the spread of disease.

The Ministry of Defence will announce later on Friday that the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship Sir Tristram and a new helicopter carrier HMS Ocean are on their way to help in the relief operation.

They will join the frigate HMS Sheffield, which has already been involved in rescue work around Honduras.

The BBC's Mark Laity says HMS Sheffield has already been hard at work

The two new ships are in addition to the £750,000 in aid already pledged by the UK Government.

The RFA Sir Tristram, which is carrying 150 Royal Marines and 100 Dutch servicemen, is due to arrive in Belize later on Friday.

The HMS Ocean, the newest ship in the Navy which is still on trials before entering full service, is heading for Honduras from the British Virgin Islands and should arrive in two or three days.

International Development Minister Clare Short said it was a coincidence the ships were there but they had men and equipment which could be put to work as part of the co-ordinated international operation.

Transport routes have been swept away

The operation, which includes the Americans, Canadians and Dutch, is responding to urgent appeals from Honduras in the wake of Hurricane Mitch.

Ms Short dismissed calls for the West to immediately write off the debts of countries hit by the hurricane.

She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme there was a serious case for debt relief for some countries "but in the middle of a disaster when people have to be pulled out of mud and we've got to stop cholera and hunger spreading, its an irrelevance".

The minister said: "It's just because people are excited about campaigning about debt relief that they bring it into this crisis.

"Debt relief takes too long to be relevant to helping the people who need immediate relief to make sure we don't get the present crisis to become an absolute catastrophe because hunger and disease spread."