Relief pledges pass US$2 billion

UNITED NATIONS - UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan will visit tsunami stricken Indonesia next week, as the world increased aid pledges to US$2 billion ($2.8 billion) for tsunami-hit areas in South Asia, UN officials said on Saturday.

Annan was invited to go to the Indonesia capital of Jakarta on Thursday and the officials said he had accepted and would probably issue a world appeal for relief from there, rather than New York.

More than 1 million people in Indonesia, especially in Indonesia's and Aceh province as well as 700,000 in Sri Lanka will need food aid for months as a result of the disaster, Jan Egeland, the UN emergency relief coordinator told his daily news conference.

He said 140,000 people in Sri Lanka were already receiving food supplies.

Egeland increased the overall amount donated from some US$1.2 billion to US$2 billion, mainly due to a US$500 million pledge from Japan, the highest single donation to date, as well as other nations. The United States has promised US$300 million and the World Bank US$250 million.

"We are at the moment recording pledges of US$2 billion for emergency phase and recovery phase," Egeland told his daily news conference. "It's the biggest outpouring of relief in such a short period of time."

He said that was more than all the aid received by the United Nations in 2004 for such places as Sudan's Darfur region and the Democratic Republic of the Congo combined, adding: "international compassion has never been like this."

Egeland has estimated deaths at 150,000 but said there were probably many more unrecorded fatalities in remote fishing villages.

But he said "the biggest constraints are logistical" in getting aid to victims who survived the Tsunami, which he estimated killed at least 150,000 people. More than half the dead were in Sumatra.

Helicopters, air traffic control units, boats and landing draft as well as cargo planes and several hundreds trucks were urgently needed.

"Military logistics as valuable as cash or gold (to) for us get there in the race against the clock," Egeland said.

"We need to make small damaged airstrips some of the busiest airports in the world," Egeland said, adding that relief workers needed helicopter carriers on ships "that can be outside on the coasts and not clog the airstrips."

He said had spoken about logistical needs in a telephone conference telephone conference with the US-led "core group," which includes India, Japan, Australia and the United Nations. He also related needs to Britain, Canada, China, the European Union and the Netherlands.

"Military assets are as valuable as cash or gold because (to) get there in the race against the clock," he said.

The United Nations is working with the International Committee of the Red Cross and coordinating thousands of independent relief groups to get food, medicine, generators, and transport to the millions of afflicted people.

- REUTERS