The coastal city, some 170 kilometers (106 miles) north of Port-au-Prince, has been devastated by torrential rainfall and heavy floods caused by the storm which has left thousands homeless.

The government, international aid groups and UN peacekeepers are trying to bring disaster relief, but gangs of men wielding metal bars have attacked food convoys arriving in Gonaives.

"We don't have an exact toll yet, but our calculations surpass the estimates given by the civil protection authorities," Gonaives mayor Calixte Valentin told local radio.

Civil protection authorities said at least 1,316 people have been confirmed dead in Gonaives, with 1,097 inhabitants missing and some 3,000 injured. Gonaives has a population of 200,000-250,000 people.

The city has been wrecked by the storm. Hundreds of inhabitants have set up temporary home in Gonaives' central cathedral, while health officials fear outbreaks of diarrhea and typhoid fever.

Calixte said another 50 corpses had been recovered in the Dolan neighborhood where they had been buried in a mass grave.

"In total, 10 common graves have been dug for bodies that we have found in recent hours among the rubble of destroyed homes, under mounds of mud and along the shoreline where bodies have been washed up by the sea," the mayor said.

Calixte criticised what he said was a lack of security and order in the distribution of much needed food and aid.

Police have sought to disarm some individuals, according to the mayor who said groups of young men armed with metal bars have attacked some food convoys.

International troops in a UN peacekeeping force have been mobilised to secure key food distribution points and stop them being over-run by starving Haitians.

The troops fired warning shots into the air and detonated tear gas over the weekend to disperse mobs who threatened to ransack some food centers.

Haiti's interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue on Sunday raised the prospect of temporary evacuations in Gonaives.

"We're studying the possiblity of evacuating parts of the city, by neighborhood, in order to clean and disinfect homes to diminish the risk of epidemics," Latortue said.

Countries from the Americas and Europe have pledged emergency funds and shipped several tonnes of aid, including food and medicine.

The Vatican announced Monday that Pope John Paul II had ordered the donation of 100,000 dollars to flood victims in Haiti.

The money is earmarked to buy drinking water, food and medicine for the victims of the deadly storm which struck Haiti on September 18. It also ravaged the neighboring Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

Further aggravating aid efforts, the main hospital in Gonaives was also struck by the floods, which are believed to have killed several hundred bedridden patients.

One of the world's poorest countries, Haiti has the worst deforestation in the western hemisphere, depriving many areas of natural protection from flooding. It had already been ravaged by killer floods in May and deadly civil strife earlier this year.

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