For Cyclone Survivors, Relief Is a Navy Hovercraft Roaring Onto Tidal Mud Flat : Bangladesh: U.S. forces also use helicopters and boats to deliver food, medicine and supplies.

Her mouth was open, but the young girl was speechless when the gray, 90-ton behemoth suddenly roared ashore, spitting water and mud in all directions, and then settled slowly in the muck with a huge hiss.

“It is like a mythical monster,” she said finally. “It is like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

The landing, on a muddy tidal flat, of the first U.S. Navy Hovercraft, called an LCAC, marked the formal start Thursday of the Pentagon’s attempt to help Bangladesh recover from a killer cyclone and tidal surge that devastated the southeast coast and offshore islands more than two weeks ago.

Over the next two weeks, about 7,500 Marines and other troops working from 26 helicopters and 10 landing craft based on eight warships offshore hope to deliver thousands of tons of needed food, medicine, tents and other supplies to villages scattered on islands and 120 miles of low-lying coastline.

“It is a helping hand the President wants us to present to a nation that was devastated by a natural disaster that had far more impact than a war could have,” said Maj. Gen. Henry Stackpole III, commander of Operation Productive Effort.

Although its figures are inexact, the Bangladeshi government says the cyclone left nearly 139,000 dead, a million homes destroyed or damaged and $3 billion in damage.

The Americans will mostly transport food and other supplies that are already in the country. Their helicopters will supplant Bangladesh’s small and overworked air force, while medical teams will help provide emergency health care.

Starting at dawn Thursday, U.S. choppers swarmed through the hazy skies over the major port of Chittagong, ferrying rice, tents, jerrycans and other relief packages prepared by CARE. Six military teams, each with an engineer, medic and communications specialist, were airlifted into remote villages to scout landing sites for choppers and boats.

“I was stunned,” said Lt. Tony O’Brien, a Navy SEAL who visited Kutubdia Island. “The entire area is underwater. All the people have hollow looks on their faces. It was moving.”

O’Brien spoke on the bridge of the Tarawa, a helicopter carrier that heads the amphibious task force, as it slowly steamed about 35 miles southwest of Chittagong in the Bay of Bengal.

Some on board were upset when they got the news Saturday that they were being diverted here instead of sailing directly home to San Diego after five months’ duty in the Persian Gulf.

“We damn near had a mutiny,” said one seaman. “When they told us, you could hear the whole ship groan.”

Nevertheless, most of the Americans seemed ready to help the battered and impoverished country start to rebuild.

“These people are starving,” said V. J. Reilly, a chief petty officer aboard one of the LCACs. “My wife and kids got food, a house, water they can drink. Another few weeks doesn’t bother me.”

“We’re anxious to get to work,” said Maj. B. C. Bell, a Huey helicopter pilot. “The sooner we get it done, the sooner we get home.”

“People were disappointed,” said Marine Staff Sgt. Bill Paro. “But you can’t say much when they say people are starving and dying.”

How many people actually are starving and dying 16 days after the cyclone is an open question. Most villagers are receiving at least some aid from the Bangladeshi military and scores of local and international relief organizations.

Widely feared epidemics, including cholera, appear under control. Hardship remains, but life in this harsh land is returning to normal.

On Sandwip Island, one of the worst hit by the storm, Air Force Sgt. Rick Staheli said he was surprised at how quickly villagers had rebuilt their thatch-and-bamboo homes.

“I don’t think it’s very bad now,” he said, as a line of bullock carts carried sacks of rice down the muddy road. “If we’d been here a couple of weeks ago, we’d have seen a lot worse.”

About 200 U.S. troops set up a ground command center in a two-story Bangladeshi air force training college at the edge of the Chittagong airfield. Soldiers immediately began replacing windows, straightening books in the library and setting up mosquito nets, satellite dishes and a small laboratory.

Relaxing on her bunk, Airman First Class Cheryl Sanzi, 27, said she got shots for typhoid, hepatitis and cholera and was issued malaria pills before coming here. A pre-arrival briefing didn’t ease her mind.

“They said don’t drink the water and don’t eat anything you can’t peel,” Sanzi said.

Just in case, boxes of MREs, the war’s infamous, foil-wrapped Meals, Ready to Eat, have reappeared here. And the LCACs disgorged Humvees still painted in sandy Desert Storm camouflage and marked with the black inverted V of allied vehicles in the Gulf.

Several hundred people gathered to watch the Hovercraft roar ashore here. Several beggars worked the crowd, and a flavored-ice vendor did a brisk trade in the steamy tropical heat.

Back in Dhaka, U.S. Ambassador William E. Milam conceded in a telephone interview that the Americans might find less here than they expected.

“Things are not the total, absolute disaster I imagined two weeks ago,” he said. Back then, he said, “Everyone’s messages sounded increasingly urgent.”

But Milam, a career Foreign Service officer, said he was unable to call Washington, since his embassy’s phones are still damaged from the storm.

“I have not talked to President Bush, or the secretary of state, or even the janitor of state,” he said. “I spent all day three days ago trying to get a call through and couldn’t even get the operator.”