Pledges of aid for victims of the Asian earthquake and tsunami disaster are heading towards €400 million as the official death toll climbed past 125,000.
Aid organisations have reported receiving private donations on an unprecedented scale from around the world, with large sums being donated over the internet. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has created a new website to handle the volume of donations for its €39 million initial appeal.
This was coupled with government pledges both of aid and possible future debt forgiveness. Mr Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, said yesterday more than $500 million (€370 million) had been pledged by governments and public agencies.
Britain has raised its pledge to €70.6 million and the World Bank said it would make $250 million (€183 million) available.
Across the Indian Ocean rim, the picture grew ever grimmer as the number of dead soared, with every indication that it will do so again. Doctors reported that disease was beginning to take hold in some relief camps set up in Sri Lanka, while aid agencies admitted it would be some time yet before their operation in the Sumatran province of Aceh, the worst- hit area, swung into full gear.
Some help has begun to trickle into Aceh, where 80,000 are now thought to have died. However, the UN admitted it would take "another two or three days" for the relief operation to have an impact. It said the region's infrastructure was so badly damaged that it had to create a base camp before it could fly in large amounts of supplies. The camp should be ready by today.
Indonesian authorities said government institutions in the region, hit by aftershocks yesterday which caused fresh panic, had collapsed and fuel supplies had almost run out.
There have been reports of survivors fighting for food on the streets. "This isn't just a situation of giving out food and water," said Mr Rod Volway of CARE Canada, whose emergency team was one of the first into Aceh. "Entire towns and villages need to be rebuilt from the ground up."
In Thailand, several thousand people have yet to be accounted for. Authorities said yesterday that more than 2,000 of the missing were likely to be foreigners.
In New York, Mr Annan said an "unprecedented global response" was needed to help survivors of an "unprecedented global catastrophe", adding: "We are in this for the long term." He met a core group of countries - the US, Australia, India and Japan - which has said it will lead the relief effort before calling for the whole world to make sure it is fully committed.
There has been growing criticism that the richest countries are not doing enough. The New York Times dismissed the US pledge of $35 million (€26 million) as "a miserly drop in the bucket".
Mr Annan described the response as "very good" but he stressed that "co-ordination is essential". - (Guardian service, Financial Times service)