UN officials confirmed the presence of cholera cases in flooded regions, but said aid groups were well equipped to deal with any outbreak.

A day after the UN special envoy to Somalia lamented the sluggish response to a weekend appeal by the country's weak government to avert a major disaster, the ICRC stepped up emergency operations.

The ICRC started airlifting tarpaulins to assist 324,000 people in Juba, Gedo and Hiraan regions, where floods have swept farmlands, disrupted food supplies and cut off villages affecting nearly a million people.

"The year 2006 has been catastrophic for the Somali people. After the worst drought in a decade, they are now facing torrential rain," said Pascal Hundt, the ICRC chief delegate in Somalia.

"Families are pushed to the limit of their capabilities trying to survive under such extreme climate conditions. What they need most is drinking water, shelter and food," he added.

The UN's World Food Programme said flooding had affected 900,000 people in southern Somalia, where a powerful Islamic movement and the government have been girding for an all-out war.

"Even without the floods, Somalia is one of the most difficult places to deliver assistance in the world," WFP chief for Somalia Peter Goossens said in a statement.

"So with the waters still rising, this operation is the only way to get food and other assistance to those who are in very desperate need," he added.

The WFP said it had deployed a large Ilyushin-76 aircraft and two heavy-lift helicopters to airdrop food into Somalia, where roads have been washed away.

On Tuesday, UN special Somalia envoy Francois Fall pressed for rapid delivery of supplies to the shattered nation, where some people were marooned by waters.

"At least 11 people have died from flooding in Jowhar area, most of them over the weekend," Middle Shabelle governor Sheikh Abdi Salan Hussein Mohamed told AFP.

Five others, including two children, drowned in Huruwa village, about 45 kilometres (28 miles) north of Jowhar, he said.

Islamist officials in Middle Juba said five people had drowned there when the Juba River, which originates in the highlands of neighboring Ethiopia highlands, overflowed.

Before Wednesday, the death toll from three weeks of floods, combined with attacks by crocodiles unleashed by the waters, had stood at 52.

Over the weekend, Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi warned of a catastrophic situation if urgent aid is delayed to help people whose life has been worsened by recent fighting between the pro-government and the Islamic militia.

In Kenya, at least 200,000 people, including nearly 80,000 desperate refugees from Somalia in camps in the country's northeast region, have been forced from their homes by floods, according to the UN and local disaster relief groups.

Six more people drowned in central and northern Kenya Tuesday, bringing the death toll to 37 in the last three weeks, Red Cross workers said, while aid groups say some 300,000 people will have to be assisted in the next two months.

Tens of thousands of refugees have been forced to move to higher ground after their camps flooded, the UN refugee agency said.

Authories urged villagers to evacuate from low-lying areas near Mount Kenya, fearing the rains could spark landslides, local TV reported.

Southern Ethiopia is still reeling from flash floods in August and September, which left 639 dead and affected over 350,000 people, again chiefly hitting the ethnic Somali region.

Aid groups have warned that the situation in the three eastern Africa countries is expected to worsen over the coming weeks as the torrential rain continues.

According to the UN, between 1.5 million and 1.8 million people in the three nations have been affected by the flooding, which has altered the way of life for the largely agricultural and pastoral communities.

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