Clive Myrie in Honduras: "It will be decades before the nation gets back on its feet"

Relief supplies are now beginning to arrive in Honduras, where 17,400 people were killed or are unaccounted for.

More than £30m in immediate relief aid is being supplied in the wake of the hurricane which caused massive flooding and landslides.

But aid agencies are worried that the aid may come too late to prevent further deaths.

Tom Gibb in Tegucigalpa: "there's a smell of death"

"This is the worst disaster we've seen in this hemisphere," Brian Atwood, administrator for the US Agency for International Development, told a news conference.

The United States is leading the effort, although there has been criticism that the US military has been too slow to get off the ground.

Death toll rising

Hundreds of thousands more are destitute and may not survive unless emergency supplies reach the area soon.

"Every hour that passes in the census of the dead, of those who lost their homes, of those who have been evacuated ... the numbers rise," said President Carlos Flores of Honduras, the hardest hit country.

Rageh Omaar: The international aid effort has taken on a sense of urgency

Aid arriving in Nicaragua and Honduras is flown directly into the capitals, but after that has to be ferried by helicopter and light aircraft.

The refugee siutuation is reaching crisis proportions

The main effort over the next two days will be to reach all the communities and towns still cut off by the floods.

Plans to set up regional distribution centres from which to shuttle supplies to isolated areas are in hand.

Meanwhile, there are fears of disease breaking out and the authorities are warning people to bury the dead immediately.

Tom Gibb in Tegucigalpa: "Corpses are still appearing in the rivers."

Corpses appearing in the rivers have sometimes been washed miles downstream.

Aid organisations are warning that it will take months and possibly years before Honduras gets back on its feet.

Honduran Ambassador Bermudez: "There are grave concerns about the future"

And in an interview with the BBC, the Honduran ambassador to Britain, Roberto Flores Bermudez, raised concerns about the future of the country's foreign debts.

"We were dedicating 30% of our exports to service the foreign debt and our crops have been devastated. We're talking about a serious problem," he said.