TORRENTIAL rain has battered makeshift camps in Haiti, swamping earthquake survivors in mud and giving a menacing foretaste of the coming rainy season.

Thursday's downpour soaked shelters made of bedsheets that are home to hundreds of thousands of people in Port-au-Prince and added urgency to the race to supply tents and plastic sheeting.

Aid agencies and the Haitian government warned of another humanitarian disaster if adequate shelter and sanitation did not arrive before the rainy season — which is expected to start between March and May and continue until autumn.

The warnings came as the UN increased its relief appeal for Haiti to $1.44bn, bigger than the previous record of $1.4bn after the 2004 Asian tsunami.

“As the rainy season is coming to Haiti, it will be extremely important to provide on a priority basis shelters, sanitation and other necessary humanitarian assistance,” said the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, announcing the new total.

With more than $600m already pledged in the immediate aftermath of the quake on Jan 12 the outstanding target was $768m, he said.

The magnitude 7. quake levelled much of Port-au-Prince and killed 230,000 people, according to the Haitian government. About 500,000 survivors are sleeping rough and another 500,000 are crowded in several hundred makeshift camps.

— The Guardian, London