Tsunami survivors fight for food aid at Kodaikallar
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Heavy rain and flooding are seriously hampering the tsunami relief operation in eastern Sri Lanka.
In Amparai district alone some 200,000 people were made homeless by the waves the 26 December earthquake unleashed.
Diarrhoea is rife in some refugee camps which lack basic sanitation. There are fears disease may spread as rain falls.
Meanwhile, aid agencies in a rebel-held northern district badly hit by the tsunami say they have received only one relief load from central government.
Tamil Tiger rebels who control the Mullaitivu area say 4,500 people are dead or missing, and 25,000 displaced. Yet they say they have only received one truck load of relief aid from Colombo.
In the south, US marines have arrived in the town of Galle to help those affected by the disaster, which killed at least 30,000 in Sri Lanka.
Air drops
The BBC's Dumeetha Luthra in Kalmunai - in the eastern district of Amparai - says that families who returned to their homes to try and clean up found that once again they were swamped with water.
In Kalmunai alone there are almost 30 refugee camps, with people sheltering in schools and community centres with only basic facilities.
Our correspondent says that in some camps there is only one toilet for thousands of people.
The aid agencies are trying to build temporary latrines, but say as soon as a hole is dug, rainwater fills it up.
"On a day like this, when it is raining steadily, it becomes difficult to attend to the patients," Japanese doctor Shoichi Nakano told the AFP news agency.
Helicopters of the Sri Lanka air force have dropped hundreds of sacks of potatoes, rice, onions, sugar and crates of bottled water to those affected.
Pilots say they have dropped 24 tonnes of food a day in Amparai district over the last five days, in addition to taking sick and injured people inland for treatment.
"We have not stopped a single day despite the heavy rains, as the task is too huge," Wing Commander Aravindo Mirando said.
Cholera symptoms
Meanwhile disease is already spreading through some camps.
One doctor told the BBC that he had seen the symptoms of cholera but did not yet have the facilities in the camps to test patients.
Our correspondent says that mosquito-related illnesses such as malaria and dengue fever are developing because there is so much stagnant water.
She says the situation is unlikely to improve as it is now the monsoon season in the east of the country.
Meanwhile, the UN says that it has found about 4,000 people in an eastern village who had been cut off from outside help since the tsunami battered the area eight days ago.
Officials say that villagers have been without shelter or access to clean drinking water or regular food supplies.
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American troops are arriving in Sri Lanka
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A United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) official says that he reached the village on Monday, and was the first outsider to get there since the tsunami washed away a bridge.
"As far as we know, it's the only village in the area where people are sleeping in the open and which has not received any organized aid," UNHCR spokeswoman Vivian Tan told AFP.
An advance party of American marines is in Sri Lanka as part of a humanitarian mission to help survivors of the disaster.
They are assessing what needs to be done before beginning delivering emergency supplies to tens of thousands of people in Galle district. A further 1,500 marines are expected to follow within days.
On Monday experts estimated that more than a million fishermen in Sri Lanka's north-east may have lost their livelihoods in the tsunami.
About 80% of fishing boats there are believed destroyed and many fishermen are also too scared to go to sea.
Around one million Sri Lankans are estimated to have been displaced by the tsunami.
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We have not stopped a single day despite the heavy rains, as the task is too huge
