World leaders in tsunami talks

A lone Buddah sits on the debris-strewn Sri Lankan coast at Ambalangoda in the Galle district. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and world leaders meet in Jakarta today to deal with Asia's tsunami crisis and a US$2.3 billion ($3.3 billion) humanitarian relief operation.

One of the questions they will discuss is how the world can prevent such a catastrophe occurring again.

Aid workers are struggling to feed and shelter millions of survivors who are still burying their dead 10 days after the tsunami killed 150,000 people.

Indonesia, the worst-hit nation with almost two-thirds of the dead, hopes the one-day summit will agree to set up a regional tsunami warning system, which experts say could have saved many lives.

Mr Annan is expected to announce a major UN tsunami appeal, and the meeting will also discuss the possibility of freezing debt payments from affected countries.

Leaders from 26 nations and humanitarian organisations will also look at the reconstruction needed to rebuild the shattered lives of millions of people in six Indian Ocean nations.

New Zealand's Foreign Minister, Phil Goff, is arriving from Thailand, where yesterday he saw the devastation in Phuket and Phang Nga.

He is being joined by Prime Minister Helen Clark, who said the conference would give New Zealand and other countries a better idea of the aid requirements.

Last night the Prime Minister said she was considering a national day of mourning.

Speaking in Singapore, she said she thought about a day of mourning a week ago, but because of uncertainty about the fate of all New Zealanders in the region she did not want to make a decision then.

The Prime Minister said her thinking was along the lines of the Bali bombing commemoration, when ceremonies were held in both Bali and New Zealand. "At the moment I am reluctant to set a date because we have too many families who just don't know ... "

The world has pledged nearly US$2.3 billion in aid, $10 million of it from the New Zealand Government.

Hundreds of tonnes of medicines, food, clean water and shelter are arriving in tsunami-hit areas.

Some analysts say concrete long-term rehabilitation and reconstruction plans need detailed assessments which are difficult to make when thousands of the dead are not yet buried and some isolated areas have only just been reached.

The International Monetary Fund has said calculating the economic impact of the disaster would have to wait until immediate humanitarian needs were met.

The relief effort has faced enormous hurdles.

The giant waves destroyed hospitals, damaged airports and washed away roads and bridges. And the number of aid organisations flooding into Asia has posed co-ordination problems and created bottlenecks.

"I think that what we really want to do is make sure the money that has been pledged and the resources that are on the way are properly and appropriately distributed to deal with the need," US Secretary of State Colin Powell said after he arrived in Jakarta from Thailand.

Mr Powell also aired what many in Washington have hardly dared to articulate lest they be accused of exploiting the crisis when he said: "What it does in the Muslim world, the rest of the world, is give an opportunity to see American generosity, American values in action."

The US military has a leading role in distributing aid in Indonesia's devastated province of Aceh, where most of the country's 94,000 victims were killed.

After a helicopter flight over the shoreline Mr Powell said: "I've been in war and I've been a diplomat ... but I've never seen anything like this."

Some nations, such as India, are running their own relief efforts; others such as Sri Lanka are wary of images of Marines massing on their shores, but with more than 30,000 dead welcome the assistance.

Thailand wants technical assistance rather than relief.

Negotiating the diplomatic niceties of co-ordinating efforts in countries with different needs and political priorities will be crucial to the success of the conference.

Mr Powell was not mincing words about the opportunity that the sight of American troops rescuing desperate refugees gave to change his country's international image.

"America is not an anti-Islamic, anti-Muslim nation," he said.

"America is a diverse society. We respect all religions."

Helen Clark cited the opportunity the meeting gave to develop regional solidarity with Southeast Asia.

"I think increasingly there is a willingness to see New Zealand and Australia as part of the broader region," she said. "I am honoured that we got the invitation ... I think there is an awareness that we are a good neighbour."

The United Nations' latest report on the relief operation said a lack of trucks, aircraft, boats, warehouses and operating airstrips, and a lack of co-ordination between aid groups, were holding up aid to survivors around the Indian Ocean rim.

In Sri Lanka, the second-hardest hit nation, rains that had caused fresh flooding and bogged down trucks have eased, and the UN said many districts were now accessible by road. But parts of the country's east coast were still cut off.

In Indonesia, aid groups struggled to reach some areas for the first time since the tsunami struck.

- REUTERS, NZPA