WFP sources said about five million people would come under the emergency programme, which is likely to be launched in the third week of this month.

Since the second wave of flooding in mid-July, which incurred $7b in damage to Bangladesh, the UN food-aid agency has mobilised its existing in-country food supplies to distribute rice and high-energy biscuits to 1.8m people. It also urged donors to support the agency's relief campaign.

WFP is coordinating the overall emergency response to the appeals by the UN and NGO community, the donors and the government of Bangladesh whose representatives have formed the Disaster Emergency Response Group (DERG).

In response to the WFP's call, Britain's Department for International Development (DFID) announced a $9.1m donation to the WFP for immediate distribution of rice, pulse, oil and high-energy biscuits to three million people.

WFP Country Representative and Chairman of DERG Douglas Casson Coutts in a statement yesterday said: "We are getting strong indications that donors are prepared to be generous. These unprecedented early contributions to the first state of our operation enable us to get large amounts of food straight to the homeless and vulnerable people."

He, however, warned that flood situation may turn cataclysmic in mid-August when the next monsoon rains will be unable to drain into the waterlogged ground.