Yousuf said between 20 and 30 million people need to be brought under the government's feeding programme until the next paddy harvest due in five months.

"I can assure you that nobody would starve or die from shortage of food. We have enough stocks and we have allocated those accordingly," the minister said, adding more food or funds would be arranged if need be.

The minister told the Overseas Correspondents Association Bangladesh (Ocab) that he expected a full assessment of the impact of the floods to be ready in two weeks.

The floods, the worst in six years, have killed nearly 600 people in three weeks and at their height swamped two-thirds of Bangladesh, leaving 30 million people marooned or homeless and thousands suffering from water-borne diseases, AFP reports.

Relief workers have reported more than 550 cases of pneumonia and other acute respiratory infections, one of the biggest and fastest killers of Bangladeshi children, in camps in eastern Brahmanbaria district alone, Unicef's communications chief Naseem Ur Rehman told the news agency.

The UN Children's Fund launched an appeal Monday for 13.4 million dollars to supply emergency relief and medical help to women and children in flood-hit districts where many are also suffering from diarrhoea.

"We do not know about other districts or about those outside the camps in Brahmanbaria but we have to assume the situation is grave and calls for urgent action," Rehman said.

"This (number) is at least four times the number we would expect and a level that literally sends a shudder down the spine of healthcare professionals which is why we have to move fast with this appeal," he added.

The government, which has appealed for international help to cope with the devastation caused by the floods, has estimated the flooding has caused damage to property and infrastructure in 6.6 billion dollars.

The flooding, now slowly receding in most areas, was the heaviest since Bangladesh's worst-ever floods of 1998 that killed more than 700 and left 21 million homeless.

Experts and aid agencies, however, have warned Bangladesh is still at the start of the monsoon season and more rains could cause a major humanitarian crisis.

BARISAL FLOODS

Floods triggered by the pull of full moon and pressure of receding waters from upstream engulfed vast low-lying areas in and around Barisal divisional headquarters and other parts of the southern region, our correspondent from Barisal said.

Much of Palashpur, Amanatganj Char, Vatarkhal, Balurmath, Christian Para, Sagardi, Rice

Research Institute Road, Rupatali, Battala, Nabagram and Dargabari in Barisal city are reeling under water.

Hundreds of panicked families in the lowlands criss-crossed by canals struggled to move to higher ground or take their valuables to safety.

The local weather office says the sudden flooding may rage through next 72-96 hours until the pull of full moon slackens.

The Water Development Board and port authorities are not equipped to measure water levels in runoff-swollen rivers, but experts say the Kirtonkhola, Bishkhali, Paira and Ilisha were flowing above danger marks.

Residential and commercial areas and farmlands, especially seedbeds, went under water.

LIVING IN FILTH

Homeless people waiting in long queues at a school compound in Old Dhaka jostled to grab cooked food and drinking water offered by local volunteers, Reuters quoted witnesses as saying.

"Hundreds of families crammed into the school shelter live a loathsome life with filth, stinks and flies all around," a witness said.

At Bosila on the capital's outskirts, CARE Bangladesh, the local arm of the U.S. charity, is handing out 20,000 litres of drinking water daily to villagers marooned by the floods.

"We collect water from the river and purify it at a portable treatment plant before distributing it among the marooned people by boats," CARE official Shafiqul Islam said yesterday.

"But we also need food to eat. Water alone cannot keep us alive for long," said local resident Mokbul Ahmed, 80.

(AFP, Reuters and BSS contributed to this report)