The destruction inflicted by Hurricane Felix along Nicaragua’s remote northeastern coast is worse than rescue crews expected and has prompted U.N. agencies to appeal for aid to help as many as 100,000 victims.

About 80% of 10,000 homes raked by the hurricane were destroyed, based on initial reports, the United Nations’s World Food Program said yesterday in a statement.

Diarrhea among children is increasing, almost 5,200 water wells were contaminated, and the harvest of rice and other vital crops has been lost in the affected areas of the impoverished Central American country.

The American military has been running an airlift every day this week to haul in relief supplies including food, blankets, and bottled water, at the request of the Nicaraguan government.

Residents of the devastated area “have been left with literally nothing,” William Hart, the U.N. program’s country director, said in the statement. “Everything is destroyed and their lives are in pieces. What we are discovering as we visit these remote areas is a desperate swathe of humanity that has been invisible to the outside world, and which now more than ever needs the help of outsiders.”

The World Food Program is asking member governments for $17 million, and the U.N. Children’s Fund, Unicef, is requesting $2.1 million in immediate aid. Felix made landfall in northeastern Nicaragua near the Honduras border, an area known as the Mosquito Coast that is difficult to reach even under normal conditions. The Caribbean side of Nicaragua is more than 200 miles from the capital Managua and other cities in the Pacificoriented west of the country.

Relief supplies had been delayed in reaching the port of Bilwi, formerly known as Puerto Cabezas, which was cut off from overland transport after Felix slammed into the coast on September 4 as a Category 5 hurricane, the maximum strength. It followed another Category 5 Atlantic storm, Dean, which struck a sparsely populated section of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula in August.

Officials identified 39 corpses recovered so far, 76 are awaiting identification, and dozens are still missing, according to Unicef. An estimated 155,500 people, including those of Miskito and Creole ethnicities, were affected by Felix, Unicef said yesterday in a statement on its Web site.

Government officials said at the time that tens of thousands of people in Honduras and Nicaragua were evacuated before the storm’s passage.

“The victims of this catastrophe are among the poorest and most vulnerable people, not just in Nicaragua but in the whole Latin American region,” Mr. Hart said. Unicef said it needs money to provide basic emergency supplies for affected children and women. The organization is spending $500,000 for services such as water, health, and nutrition and to help rebuild schools.

Around September 8 and 9, two ships carrying 151 metric tons of food, enough for 15,000 people for 20 days, arrived in Bilwi’s damaged port after a two-day journey along the Escondido River, the food program said.