The government in Honduras has declared a state of alert to confront a wave of epidemics in the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch.

The authorities have reported thousands of new cases of cholera, malaria and diarrhoea.

A fatal disease called leptospirosis has also appeared -- it's carried by rats and causes liver and kidney failure.

In neighbouring Nicaragua, the flooding and mudslides dislodged many of the estimated seventy thousand anti-personnel mines laid during the civil war of the 1980s.

The head of the Organisation of American States, Cesar Gaviria, says efforts to clear the mines have been put back by several years.