WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- The US Congress, upon the request of President George W. Bush, approved on Thursday 51.8 billion dollars in additional funds to support recovery efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

    The aid bill, which overwhelmingly passed in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, is the second wave of emergency funds slated to help victims of the hurricane that hit the US states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida in August.

    Last Friday, Bush signed into law an initial aid package amounting to about 10.5 billion dollars shortly after it was approved by the Congress.

    Earlier, White House Spokesman Scott McClellan noted this will not be the last funding for relief and recovery efforts, and US Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid said he expected the total funding for relief efforts to be as much as 150 billion dollars.

    The new funding includes 1.4 billion dollars for the military and 400 million dollars for the Army Corps of Engineers, which is working to plug breached levees in the ravaged city of New Orleans, Louisiana.

    The rest is earmarked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the country's front-line disaster response body, which will use the new funding to carry out rescue missions, provide victims with drinking water, and deal with public health issues caused by the killer storm. Enditem