Nothing to eat or drink, plenty of panic in New Orleans

With the bodies of the dead floating through the waterlogged streets and gangs of armed looters picking through the remains of New Orleans, authorities reluctantly issued a total evacuation order yesterday, saying it might be weeks or even months before their city would again be fit for human habitation.

The shocked mayor of the city, Ray Nagin, said the numbers of dead could reach into the thousands.

"We know there is a significant number of dead bodies in the water." Asked how many, he replied: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands."

Despite a monumental rearguard effort by Army engineers and National Guardsmen to plug the levees breached during the furious onslaught of Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said the waters were continuing to rise and there was no choice but to get the remaining inhabitants out.

Witness reports and television pictures from the city once known as the Big Easy suggested a near-apocalyptic scene of submerged streets and buildings, fetid waters fouled by debris, sewage and oil products, and gas from broken pipes bubbling to the surface and breaking out in periodic fires.

There was no food, no electricity, no drinkable water. Panicked residents punched through windows, walls and ceilings to clamber on to roofs and await rescue under the punishing summer sun.

There were reports of elderly family members telling their loved ones they had no more strength and sinking into the depths, of one woman floating the body of her dead husband through the streets atop a door from their home, of screaming and weeping and fights breaking out in the struggle for survival.

Officially, about 130 dead have been counted along the length of the Gulf Coast stretching into Mississippi and Alabama, but the final figure is likely to be much higher.

President George W. Bush flew over the disaster zone yesterday and said later the recovery would take years.

A massive rescue operation was being co-ordinated by 3000 National Guard members, with back-up from every local, state and federal agency available.

* Prime Minister Helen Clark has sent condolences and an offer of help to United States President George Bush.

- INDEPENDENT