Aid slow to reach cyclone victims

International donors pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild Bangladesh’s cyclone-ravaged coast, but help wasn’t coming fast enough to relief camps, where food shortages triggered fistfights.

The government said it had promises of $390 million in international aid, much of it from a $250-million pledge from the World Bank.

But relief officials were struggling to get desperately needed rice, drinking water and tents to thousands of people in remote villages wrecked by the Nov. 15 storm, which killed more than 3,500 people and left tens of thousands homeless.