BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AFP) Dec 30, 2004
The death toll in Sunday's Indian Ocean tsunami disaster neared 120,000 on Thursday as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan spoke of "an unprecedented global catastrophe" which called for "an unprecedented global response".

Annan announced that half a billion dollars in aid had been promised or delivered for victims of the quake which has left up to five million people homeless in Asia.

And in an interview with AFP, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said an international donors' conference was being organized, probably for as early as next week.

Scenes of panic were also reported in the region on Thursday as a series of aftershocks rocked traumatised survivors.

Annan, speaking in New York, said: "This is an unprecedented global catastrophe, and it requires an unprecedented global response. Over the past few days, it has registered deeply in the consciousness and conscience of the world as we seek to grasp the speed, the force and magnitude with which it happened.

"But we must also remain committed for the longer term. We know that the impact will be felt for a long time to come."

He added: "A total of half a billion in assistance has been pledged and received, as well as contributions in kind. More than 30 countries have stepped forward to help us help millions of individuals from around the world."

Powell told AFP: "A donor conference is being planned for the very near future. The European Union called for it and it's now being pulled together for, I think, sometime next week."

Harsaran Pandey, spokeswoman for the World Health Organisation in South Asia, told AFP: "We estimate that up to five million people have been displaced and are at risk across the region."

The global health body said between one and three million of those affected were in Indonesia, with another one million in Sri Lanka. The rest were spread between India, the Maldives and other nations.

The estimate came as a government warning that high waves could strike again from aftershocks rattling Indonesia sent thousands fleeing in panic from the coastline of southern India.

"The waves are coming," people yelled as they fled on foot, buses and any transport they could find.

The latest quake, measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale, hit northwest of Indonesia's Sumatra island city of Medan shortly after 4:00 amWednesday), after two quakes measuring 5.1 and 5.2 the previous evening, but experts said they were not big enough to cause tidal waves.

Sunday's killer tsunamis were unleashed by a gigantic 9.0 magnitude tectonic shift 150 kilometres (93 miles) off Sumatra, rolling on across the Indian Ocean to wreak havoc in 11 countries.

Nearly 119,000 people are confirmed dead, thousands are missing, and the toll is expected to rise sharply with disease threatening the lives of survivors.

In Indonesia, which has been hardest by the disaster with nearly 80,000 people confirmed killed, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono urged separatist rebels in the earthquake and tsunami-ravaged province of Aceh on Sumatra to lay down their weapons and join efforts to rebuild the region.

"I call on those who are still raising arms, to come out... let us use this historic momentum to join and be united again," Yudhoyono told a press conference.

Meanwhile, the international effort to bring aid to Aceh cranked slowly into gear but the program was hampered by transport problems as the death toll continued to rise.

"Much of Aceh, which was closest to the epicentre of the earthquake, has been leveled and the local population urgently needs shelter and basic living supplies," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers said. "The numbers and the needs are absolutely staggering."

In another hard-hit country facing a separatist insurgency, Sri Lanka, the tragedy which has hit government and rebels alike seems also to be provoking signs of a change of attitude.

An AFP correspondent who made it through to areas controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was told by an official in charge of medical coordination that "contrary to routine the army will not check the vehicles going to the rebel zones."

And in Tamil regions controlled by the army, the "military is helping all communities, and that includes Tamils," said a medical student Kiruben Tharmalingam, 22.

Sri Lanka's tsunami death toll is set to cross 29,000 with most of the 4,500 missing people likely to be declared dead "in the next few days," President Chandrika Kumaratunga said Thursday.

President George W. Bush announced the United States, Australia, Japan and India would spearhead the international response to the catastrophe and urged other nations to join.

Remarkable tales of heartwarming generosity emerged amid the chaos and grief. Throughout the hardest-hit countries of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and India, people came forward to help, donating clothes and food while tending the wounded.

Others set about the more grisly task of disposing of the bloated corpses that litter beaches and streets and threaten public health.

"I heard that they needed some help, so I came," explained Sangitan Senaphan, a 20-year-old volunteer at a hospital in Phuket, Thailand.

"I just want to help people," said hotelier Khun Wan who was offering free food and accommodation to foreign tourists struggling to cope in the aftermath of the tragedy.

At least 710 foreigners are among the 2,394 confirmed to have died after tidal waves battered southwest Thailand, the interior ministry said Thursday, with 6,130 still missing, many of them foreigners.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra suggested Thailand's final death toll could approach 6,800, as European nations joined Thais in trying to trace thousands of missing people.

Sweden and Germany have each said that more than 1,000 of their nationals are unaccounted for, while 430 Norwegians and hundreds of French are unaccounted for.

Across the region families opened their homes to bewildered survivors and strangers offered the shirts off their backs to foreigners in swimwear left with nothing but their lives.

Dutchwoman Irene Nicastro, who was forced to flee empty-handed as her hotel room in Galle in southern Sri Lanka filled with water, was touched by the generosity shown to her by locals.

"Despite their own losses, they took care of us," she said, and pledged to raise money to help Sri Lankans cope with their losses when she gets back to her wealthier lifestyle.

For some, though, it has all been too much.

At Banda Aceh's main Baiturrahman mosque, a 20th century Moorish structure filled with the stench of rotting flesh, a lone man in a dirty white Tt-shirt and jeans sat in a corner mumbling to himself and others, not having uttered a single word in two days.

Children have been among the hardest hit by the tragedy, swept off their feet by the power of the waves and drowned, or losing their parents and siblings. And for some, the killer tsunamis are coming again, over and over, in their nightmares.

Malaysian Rahibah Osman's 11-year-old son, Mohamad Fikri Rahim, who was caught by ferocious waves "as high as coconut trees and blackened with mud", has troubled dreams in Penang General Hospital after being saved by his father.

He cries in his sleep and shouts "No, no!", his mother, 49, told AFP.

"I don't know what he's talking about, but when I ask him, he starts to cry," she said.

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