Criticism of Bush mounts as more than 10,000 feared dead ·
Governor threatens looters with shoot-to-kill · Relief convoys arrive after four days

Gary Younge in Mobile
Saturday September 3, 2005
The Guardian

As thousands of people sat on the streets of New Orleans, having spent their fourth day waiting to be rescued, the city fell deeper into chaos, with gangs roaming the city and corpses rotting in the sun.

Calling for the immediate deployment of regular combat troops in New Orleans, David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican senator said: "My guess is that it [the death toll] will start at 10,000, but that is only a guess." He said this estimate was not based on any official death toll or body count.

Live television broadcasts showed a queue of military vehicles loaded with crates making their way through the flooded streets. Troops with rifles rode in the convoy.

In another sign of aid finally getting through, commercial aircraft carrying supplies were arriving at an increased rate of four per hour at New Orleans international airport, the department of transport said.

But these moves did little to quell the mounting anger of the hurricane's victims and local officials, particularly in New Orleans.

At the increasingly unsanitary convention centre, the crowds swelled to about 25,000 as people sought food, water and attention, while dead bodies lay in wheelchairs or wrapped in sheets both inside and outside the centre. At the city's Charity hospital, the dead were stacked up on the stairways. New Orleans airport was transformed into a huge field hospital, with fleets of military and coastguard helicopters ferrying the sick for treatment.