NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Rescuers going house to house searched for hurricane survivors Sunday, and New Orleans turned its attention to collecting what is likely to be thousands of bodies from the floodwaters.

“We need to prepare the country for what’s coming,” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Fox News Sunday.

“We are going to uncover people who died, maybe hiding in houses, got caught by the flood. … It is going to be about as ugly of a scene as I think you can imagine.”

In the first official count in Lousiana, state emergency medical director Louis Cataldie said authorities had verified 59 deaths.

No one knows how many people were killed by Hurricane Katrina and how many more succumbed waiting to be rescued. But the bodies are everywhere: hidden in attics, floating in the ruined city, crumpled in wheelchairs, abandoned on highways.

Craig Vanderwagen, rear admiral of the US Public Health Service, said one morgue alone, at a St Gabriel prison, expected 1,000 to 2,000 bodies.

Meanwhile, aid has began pouring in from around the world.

Kuwait leads with an offer of US$500 million (about euro480 million) Sunday, and other large donations began pouring in worldwide, including from the Mideast, despite widespread opposition to US policies in the area.

The European Union and NATO also stepped up to provide aid following rare requests for help from Washington.

Kuwait’s offer includes US$400 million (euro320 million) in oil products and US$100 million (euro79.74 million) in humanitarian relief, Al Sabah’s spokesman told The Associated Press.

The size of the disaster has caused an outpouring of sympathy from across the world, including European countries, most of which rallied around the United States with similar pledges of solidarity and cooperation after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Britain’s Defense Ministry said the government would send 500,000 ration packs and a second German military plane loaded with 15 tons of emergency food rations for victims left for the U.S. on Sunday. A first flight with 10 tons of rations arrived in Florida Friday night.

In Rome, a C130 military transport plane packed with much-needed supplies, including enough blankets, cots, bed supplies, inflatable dinghies, water purifiers and first-aid kits to benefit about 15,000 people, was to leave last night.

US air and boat crews from many agencies searched flooded neighbourhoods in and around the city for survivors Sunday.

In addition to civilian deaths, New Orleans emergency service agencies have had to deal with some suicides among their ranks, Mayor Ray Nagin said.

“I’ve got some firefighters and police officers that have been pretty much traumatised,” he said. “And we’ve already had a couple of suicides so I am cycling them out as we speak, but we have a problem. I can get them to Baton Rouge, but once I get them to Baton Rouge there’s no hospitals. They need physical and psychological evaluations.”