As the government also admitted it had no idea when those left homeless in the September 26 disaster would be resettled, international aid agencies stepped up their efforts to help the flood victims.

"Epidemic potential in some areas is very, very high," Health Secretary Francisco Duque told reporters after visiting one camp housing 8,000 people in a northern part of Manila, the nation's capital.

The government has already faced fierce criticism for its response to the disaster, which claimed at least 295 lives when tropical storm Ketsana dumped the heaviest rains in over four decades on Manila and neighbouring areas.

Duque said that, 11 days after the floods, only 240 portable toilets had been delivered to the more than 500 evacuation shelters that had been set up at gymnasiums, schools and large sports arenas.

In the camp at suburban Marilao that he visited, Duque said an average of about 100 people daily had been complaining of diarrhoea and the number was increasing.

"Marilao is just an example. Certainly what's happening there could be a reflection of what may be happening in other affected areas," he said.

In the first few days after the floods, the government said it feared disease outbreaks such as swine flu, diarrhoea and the bacterial disease leptospirosis.

But Duque's comments were the strongest from the government about a potential health crisis involving flood survivors.

The burden for overstretched relief workers increased when Typhoon Parma slammed into the northern Philippines exactly a week after Ketsana, killing at least 16 and flooding large swathes of farmland.

Many areas in Manila and the northern provinces remain flooded, forcing many thousands of people to live in flooded villages or cities with their homes still partly submerged.

Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said government efforts were focused on relief operations, and that resettling those living in the evacuation centres remained a long way off.

"It's not possible to give a time frame," he said when asked about resettlement.

Teodoro said government was tapping engineers to come up with a new urban plan, but just repairing destroyed bridges, dykes and roads would be the main priority in the next six months.

Meanwhile, the United Nation's resident coordinator to the Philippines, Jacqueline Badcock, said a flash appeal for 74 million dollars issued by the world body in Geneva on Tuesday would go to about one million people.

"With flood waters yet to recede from many affected areas, access to populations in need of assistance continues to be challenging," she said.

"It is predicted that some areas will remain under flood waters for up to two months."

The UN's World Food Programme country director Stephen Anderson said earlier that agency had used boats and helicopters to deliver food, while the US military had also mobilised air assets to help in the effort.

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday sent condolences to the Philippines, and said his government had set aside 1.8 million dollars for its Southeast Asian ally to help deal with the floods.

earlier related report

Philippine weather forecasters in a storm of controversy
A storm threatens to wallop the Philippines but a huge computer that dominates the forecasting room of the nation's weather service is in screensaver mode showing a cartoon pattern of unexploded bombs.

While tropical storm Parma ominously hovers near the main island of Luzon, the computer has no data to receive as the main weather radar on a hilltop in the northeastern resort of Baguio is out of action -- again.

This scenario played out Tuesday when AFP visited the forecasters in Manila to examine why they failed to predict the ferocity of tropical storm Ketsana which killed nearly 300 people in and around the capital on September 26.

"Our old radar has limitations," said Fredolina Baldonado, a meteorologist at the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA).

"It has a blind spot to the south and that includes Metropolitan Manila."

This, she said, explained why the forecasters were unable to warn the residents of Manila before 42 centimetres (17 inches) -- the heaviest deluge in more than four decades -- was dumped on the nation's capital.

Asked why the radar was not working on Tuesday as Filipinos looked to PAGASA for guidance on tropical storm Parma, senior weather forecaster Rene Paciente gave a matter-of-fact explanation about the radar breakdown in Baguio.

A landslide had disturbed the alignment of its antenna, and as a result could not transmit data to the forecaster's headquarters, Paciente said.

Stuck in the middle of the Pacific typhoon belt, the impoverished Southeast Asian archipelago's first line of defence for dangerous weather is PAGASA, an acronym which without any intended irony is the Filipino word for "hope".

The weather service has a limited network of radar stations to track an average of 19 typhoons that approach the country each year, with nine or 10 of those storms making landfall to claim a combined tally of hundreds of lives.

While weather forecasters around the world are often subject to derision for getting their predictions wrong, PAGASA is a particularly vulnerable target with critics using the events of recent weeks to strengthen their arguments.

However, PAGASA operations chief Nathaniel Cruz insisted he was in charge of a "24/7" system, manned at any one time by up to four forecasters.

They were supported by as many as three cartographers who plotted the weather systems on graphs, up to two weather satellite experts and two meteorological telecommunications men, he said.

Cruz also rejected one common assertion that PAGASA was not getting the government funding needed to perform properly.

"It is incorrect to say PAGASA has been left begging for funds," Cruz said, adding the government had given the weather service four billion pesos (about 86 million dollars) for equipment upgrades over the past five years.

Nevertheless, PAGASA's headquarters is an old, squat building on a sprawling government compound in northern Manila that has been overrun by squatters.

One side of the street houses PAGASA, the Bureau of Internal Revenue and other government agencies, while on the other side and behind the buildings are shanty towns housing thousands of squatters.

Cruz urged people to focus on a plan to buy five modern Doppler radars worth 100,000 dollars each that would dramatically improve PAGASA'S forecasting abilities.

The radars would give the country warnings six hours ahead of typhoons, and would be able to predict the intensity of rain expected to fall within an area as small as two square kilometres (0.8 square miles).

The plan is for two of the radars to be installed next year on either seaward flank of Manila, remedying the current radar's blind spot that caused the deadly miss when tropical storm Ketsana hit.

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